Bird poison concerns some in downtown Cape

As Charles Bertrand mowed his lawn late last week in Cape Girardeau, he noticed two dead pigeons in his yard at the corner of Independence and Lorimier. He tossed them in the trash and went about his work.

Thirty minutes later, Annie, his 1 1/2-year-old Llewelyn setter, started having convulsions and severe seizures. Eventually, the beloved family pet went into a 12-hour coma, a condition her veterinarian later described as "near death."

There were pigeon feathers around the dog's mouth.

Bertrand and his wife, Lisa, immediately suspected the birds had been poisoned and that Annie had eaten one. Their fears were supported when they noticed as many as 20 dead pigeons in the downtown area. Others also noticed a number of dead pigeons.

They also noticed some kernels of corn that had been thrown around.

The Bertrands filed a report with the Cape Girardeau Police Department's Animal Control Division. An officer showed up, gutted one of the pigeons and found that it had eaten corn.

Police looking into the matter Monday discovered that the owners of the Marquette Tower at Broadway and Fountain Street had contracted with Quality Pest Control of Cape Girardeau to reduce the building's pigeon population.

"We do have an exterminator to get rid of the pigeons," said Bill Whitlow, project manager with Jefferson City-based Prost Builders, which owns the building.

Whitlow said he doesn't know what measures the pest-control company used, though.

"We just told him to do whatever he had to do to get rid of them, you know, within the law," Whitlow said. "We talked about a whole bunch of options. We've been having dead pigeons for a long time."

The operators of Quality Pest Control could not be reached for comment Monday evening, though police said Monday that Quality Pest Control had offered not to use the poison-laced corn anymore.

Police told Lisa Bertrand the pest-control company used Avitrol, a chemical which is commonly used across the country by licensed pest-control workers. The Web site for Avitrol cautions that it is a poison and should be kept away from children.

The Marquette's roof is covered with pigeons on a daily basis. Patrolman Ty Metzger with animal control said policing nuisance birds is within the bounds of the law.

"It's not illegal what they're doing," he said, "as long as one of the federally protected birds don't eat some poison."

But Lisa Bertrand said she wishes the Marquette would have used a more humane method to handle the pigeon population.

"I would think that somebody would understand there would be predators that would eat these birds, that it wouldn't stop with the bird," she said. "I'm surprised there's not a ban on using a poison like that in the city."

Metzger said animal control picked up several pigeons on Monday. Still, several dead pigeons remained in the downtown area, and in some places corn can be seen lying on the ground. A quick check along Themis, Broadway and Lorimier revealed seven dead pigeons. One was lying less than 5 feet from a handful of corn. One had been run over by a car, and there was corn inside the remains.

Saturday night, the Bertrands watched as another pigeon in their yard apparently reacted to the poison, its head rolling back and forth, pecking at itself.

"It was the most traumatic thing to see this bird die the way it did," said Lisa Bertrand, a professor at Southeast Missouri State University. "It wasn't humane at all."

Dr. John Koch, a veterinarian with the Cape Small Animal Clinic, treated Annie. He said the information he received is consistent with a poisoning.

The day after Annie came in, Koch said she looked near death. He cautioned the Bertrands to prepare for the worst. But sometime the next day, Annie had a bowel movement that was full of kernels of corn.

She got better rapidly after that, gaining consciousness and now seems healthy, he said.

"But I've got to assume, based on the information I've been given and the way the dog responded that this dog got into some kind of poison," Koch said. "And it sounds to me like this corn is the culprit."

Cape Girardeau County Humane Society director Sue Sample said she doesn't get reports like this too often. But she said she doesn't approve of the way the pigeons were being exterminated.

"These birds aren't just dying where they ate the poison, they're going to die in other people's yards," she said. "It doesn't sound right to me. It wasn't even humane the way the birds died. And what about children? If this corn is lying around, they could get into it. It doesn't sound very safe."

Other local pest-control companies said they have switched to more "environmentally friendly" methods of handling nuisance birds, such as barriers, electrical shock tape and smell-releasing instruments that send pigeons scurrying.

smoyers@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137