The common city pigeon (Columba livia), might be the first bird humankind ever domesticated. They can be seen in art dating back as far as 4500 BCE in modern Iraq, and they’ve been a valuable source of food for thousands of years but they’re often described as “rats with wings” (a phrase popularised by the movie Stardust Memories)
As can be seen from the video below, the pigeon population in Barga Vecchia has increased during the spring and the summer months.
There is now a large family group living safe under the overhanging eaves of the houses in parts of the city especially under the eaves of the roof of Palazzo Pancrazi, the 500 year old town hall building in the centre of Barga Vecchia.
Over the years there have been many attempts to keep their numbers down – most of which have failed.
From the barganews.com archive from 2007 – Life just got difficult for the pigeons that roosted under the eaves of the roof of Palazzo Pancrazi, the 500 year old town hall building in the centre of Barga Vecchia. This morning work started on putting up physical barriers to keep the pigeons on the move. A series of light alloy spikes which create a very small visual disturbance to people on the ground but create a very large disturbance for the birds when taking off and landing. This is the second time that these spikes have been used around the outside of the Palazzo Pancrazi to keep the pigeons away – the last time the birds retaliated by rocking the lines of spikes until they dropped to the ground.
That time they were made of plastic and were just one single line of spikes. This time they are alloy and containing a series of 5 spikes in a line. Any bets on how long these will last ? https://www.barganews.com/2007/04/23/difficult-time-for-the-pigeons-in-barga-vecchia/
Just four years later in 2011 from the barganews archives we can read the following :
Four years has now passed and the pigeons are gradually taking over the Palazzo Pancrazi once again and it seems that so far nothing that the Comune can do will stop this problem. A quick tour of the search engines on the net reveals that there are other solutions to this problem, some more drastic that others: pigeon food laced with anti conception drugs, bringing hawks and of course trapping or shooting the pigeons. https://www.barganews.com/2011/04/12/pigeons-are-back-and-with-a-vengeance/
A helium balloon which escaped from a recent wedding, was re-captured and then tethered above the piazza just below the eaves to deter the pigeons from roosting.
It worked – they have all gone BUT all they did was move just a few metres to their collective right and roosted once again under another palazzo.
The problem has not gone away.
