Fewer Pigeons on City Hall Grass, Alas

Recently I wrote that my letters had been running about 6-to-1 against the City Hall program of trapping and destroying its pigeons. I had reported that about 800 pigeons were trapped and killed last year, and hundreds more were on the hit list.

The reason for this deadly sweep, I said, was simply that pigeons on the lawns and the mall were considered a dirty nuisance and perhaps a health hazard.

The letters of disapproval are now running about 40-to-0. It may seem statistically impossible that a single vote of approval could be eliminated even by a large rise in dissents, but in this case the one reader who approved the project has eliminated himself.

“I was chagrined,” writes Walker Peterson of Inglewood, “to read my name in your column recently with respect to a letter I had written to you about pigeons. Frankly, I was shocked at the harshness of my own words in cold print. . . .”

Noting that his dislike of pigeons was “heroic,” I had quoted Peterson as saying: “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 further complained that pigeons nest and mate in his window sill, creating a “bawdy atmosphere” in which no “normal” person can work, and when he goes out to eat a sandwich they cloud around him, “showering me and my food in a mist of dust, dirt, mites and other parasites from their filthy bodies. . . .”

He not only wished the city Godspeed in its program but suggested they import peregrine falcons. “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. . . .”

Peterson devoted other paragraphs to an even meaner vilification of pigeons, but since he has had a change of heart, I feel it is unfair to quote them now.

I know what Mr. Peterson means when he says he was “shocked at the harshness of my own words in cold print.” Even after 30 years, I am still sometimes shocked at the harshness of my own words in cold print. It is a stark reality that people who are not used to being quoted cannot foresee.

“It did not make me feel any better,” Peterson writes, “that you also included in that column excerpts from letters others had written expressing somewhat different opinions about pigeons and serving up a few harsh words of their own about people like me. . . .

“Their words caused me to have second thoughts. I realized that euthanasia is an oxymoron: There is no such thing as a good death if you are a pigeon who does not want to die.

“I also reflected that, though I might not appreciate the beauty of the urban pigeon, there obviously are many who do. Who am I to wish that a ‘feathered ornament’ were to be plucked from their concrete garden?

“Alas, I was wrong to lash out at the hapless pigeon. I apologize to pigeon fanciers, bird lovers, and bird watchers, everywhere, whom my remarks may have offended. I also apologize to the pigeons: hang in there . . . just leave me alone while I’m trying to eat my sandwich in the mall.”

I applaud Peterson for the most complete and graceful withdrawal from a harsh and hasty opinion that I have ever received. Few people care to admit their errors in print even when they are proved wrong. Peterson has retreated from a hostile position simply because, having seen it in print, and having seen himself as less than magnanimous, he has repented.

I hope the City Hall pigeons are as fair to Peterson as he has been to them, and that they do not cloud about or otherwise molest him while he is trying to eat his sandwich on the mall.

Meanwhile, Lena M. Boxley of El Monte suggests a battle cry for the pigeons. “I join the pigeons in their opinion of these people who would have them sent away. ‘Coo coo!’ ”

Besides, Boxley points out a most practical point in favor of the pigeons: “Their droppings are biodegradable.”