Their Voting Is Definitely for the Birds

Recently I expanded here on stories in both The Times and the Downtown News about a City Hall project for trapping and exterminating hundreds of pigeons that frequent the City Hall lawns and the mall.

Paraphrasing the London bobby who restored order at an anti-monarchist demonstration in Hyde Park by saying, “All those as is for the queen line up over here, and all those as is against the queen line up over there,” I invited readers as is for the pigeons to line up here.

My mail has been running about 6-to-1 for the pigeons.

Taking the opposition first, I quote Walker Peterson of Inglewood, whose dislike of pigeons is heroic.

“I’m lining up over there,” he says. “I don’t like pigeons. I’ve worked in the Civic Center for almost 25 years, and I hate pigeons. Pigeons have nearly driven me out of my office. Just getting in and out of the building means crossing a Maginot line of pigeon droppings.”

He complains that pigeons nest and mate in his window sill, creating a “bawdy atmosphere” in which no “normal” person can work. He says he would like to eat on the mall, but whenever he goes out with a sandwich the pigeons cloud around him, “showering me and my food in a mist of dust, dirt, mites and other parasites from their filthy bodies. . . .

“I’m in the other line, the one wishing Mr. Bob King (city building services director) Godspeed in his program of euthanasia. If it might help him, I suggest that he import more peregrine falcons into the Civic Center. There is nothing quite so lovely and gratifying to witness as the sight of a falcon streaking down from above to snatch a fluttering pigeon in midair.”

Curiously, John Owen, who first wrote me about the pigeon program weeks ago, said he had worked in City Hall for 22 years, that the pigeons also roosted on his window ledge and he found them a delightful relief from concrete and steel.

Lena M. Boxley of El Monte also lines up for pigeons: “Some miscreant wants to send all of the pigeons away because he says they make messes and are not dignified. What if someone decided that fat people were unsightly? Would we pack them all up and send them away too? What about teens with acne or men who wear brown shoes with white socks?”

Barry Shipman of San Bernardino paraphrases Gertrude Stein’s immortal line: “No more pigeons in the grass. Alas! Alas!” and declares himself: “One of those as is for the pigeons.”

“Please count me in as one who is for the pigeons,” writes Cindy White of Sunland. “We seem to think that air conditioners in our cars are more important than the ozone layer. And now it seems that pigeons are a problem to be solved in the same way we want to solve the mountain lion problem--wipe ‘em out, blow them away. Pigeons are such gentle, cheerful reminders to city dwellers that we are not the only species on the planet. Surely we can find a way to coexist with them if we try.”

“I know it seems a trivial thing to be upset about,” writes John Degatina of Studio City, “but over the years I have noticed that people who are indifferent to these graceful, innocent, little winged ornaments to the Earth are people I don’t much like. In the big scheme this is an infinitely small planet that we share with these other living critters. If the indifferent attitudes of many people can endanger the lives of magnificent beings like elephants, how much chance does a bunch of pigeons stand?”

“My vote is definitely for the birds,” writes Judy D. Morrissey of Arcadia. “We have caused too much terror and destruction in the animal kingdom to allow such waste to be sanctioned once again.”

Louis Lasco suggests a more humane solution, if the pigeons must go: “Your column brings to mind the recent rumor that the pigeons lately perched on the roof of the Union Oil Building were dispersed by the playing of Lauritz Melchior records in stereophonic sound. My own feeling,” he adds, “is that pigeons are not all that threatening. Their excremental nonchalance need not impinge on our environmental concerns.”

Meanwhile, what can we do with men who wear white socks and brown shoes?