After the city of Limburg agreed last year to relocate 200 city pigeons to an animal welfare centre in the Upper Palatinate in order to reduce the population, it has now cancelled the tender to capture the animals - for cost reasons: Because trapping was to cost more in the bid received than the city had factored in, the killing is now to be put out to tender again. Katrin Pichl, expert on urban pigeons at the German Animal Welfare Association, comments.
‘The scandal surrounding the city pigeons in Limburg is entering the next round: the 200 rescued pigeons are now threatened with death after all. This is cruel and senseless. And it shows that the city of Limburg never had any insight at any time, but merely wanted to wipe its slate clean with a half-hearted sham solution in the face of public pressure.
Animal welfare costs money. And the city must be prepared to spend it. As soon as just one pigeon is killed, we will press charges.
At the same time, it must be clear: Anyone who is seriously interested in a permanent solution that is in line with animal welfare needs to invest money in the right place. After all, a one-off removal of the pigeons would not solve anything anyway: the number of animals would be reduced in the short term, but would quickly increase again. Arguing with the cost of killing them is therefore not only cruel, but also absurd.
It would be best for the city to invest money in long-term management measures. Because the only sensible, animal-friendly and sustainable solution is and remains the establishment of supervised pigeon lofts. As soon as the animals lay eggs there, these can be replaced with dummies such as plaster eggs. In this way, the number of urban pigeons can be sustainably reduced.’
Background: In November 2023, the Limburg municipal council voted in favour of the killing of urban pigeons by a hunter and falconer. Following a nationwide wave of outrage, a referendum was called the following year. We campaigned in favour of an animal-friendly solution with a poster campaign and letters. Unfortunately, however, a majority voted in favour of not repealing the Limburg city councillors' decision to kill city pigeons. Shortly afterwards, it seemed as if the killing could still be averted: 200 animals were to be caught and relocated to an animal welfare centre.
