Steve Ryan, a San Diego counselor, was...

Steve Ryan, a San Diego counselor, was sitting inside Union Station with two friends one recent afternoon when they saw a man fire a rifle at the railroad terminal’s ceiling.

Security personnel came over to chat with the rifleman, who then left the station.

When a friend of Ryan’s asked the officers what the shooting was all about, they were told that it was part of the county’s pigeon-eradication program.

“Pigeons can be a real problem at Union Station, especially with those high ceilings,” said Dave Kruger, an area inspector with the County Agriculture Department. “Every once in a while we receive a complaint and we go out there to do some control work for a couple of hours. But we generally work only in the patio area. We usually schedule indoor work only when it’s empty.”

If trapping or repellents prove ineffective, then agriculture personnel use pellet guns, as was the case at Union Station, Kruger said. As many as 50 of the birds can be bagged in an hour.

“This is legal and they (the riflemen) are certified to use the weapons,” he said, pointing out that pigeons can serve as vehicles for the spread of such diseases as St. Louis encephalitis.

Ryan’s complaint is the rifle-firing in public.

“I’ve worked with a number of combat vets who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder,” he said, “and if someone with such problems had been sitting there, it could have been a very bad situation.”

Sixty mermaids in downtown Los Angeles? Obviously they didn’t swim up the Los Angeles River.

The sculptures, paintings and historical documents are featured in “Mermaids and the Creatures of the Sea,” a free show at the 400 S. Hope St. Lobby Gallery.

The king of the jungle is a mere peasant at the Los Angeles Zoo.

A recent exit poll of visitors to the park revealed that lions are only their 10th-favorite type of critter.

The runaway winners were the gorillas with 28% of the vote. They soundly thrashed monkeys (18%), koalas (14%), elephants (11%), reptiles (11%), giraffes (10%), tigers (8%), birds (8%), bears (6%) and the lowly lion (4%).

The most popular single animals are Jim, Kelly and Angel, the zoo’s trio of 2-year-old gorillas, said zoo spokeswoman Deborah Pollack.

“They’re definitely hot,” Pollack said. “And they’re being raised by their moms, which doesn’t happen very often in captivity.”

The gorilla tots’ parentage is somewhat confusing. Kelly and Angel, for instance, have the same father--Chris. But Kelly’s mother is Cleo while Angel’s mother is Sandy. And Sandy is Cleo’s mother.

“I believe that makes Angel not only Kelly’s half-sister but his aunt,” said Pollack. “But it doesn’t seem to bother them in the least.”