The announcement by the city council that pigeons are to be culled in Hanley in an attempt to clean up the city centre does not go down well with those who believe the majority of living creatures have a right to survive.    Why are people so disgusted and unnerved by pigeons?  Have people been so conditioned that these little creatures are vermin and 'rats with wings' that they lose all sense of perspective and understanding that the pigeons are just foraging in Hanley and other town centres for a bite to eat.   They mooch when they have empty stomachs just like we would do.  If it were a parrot or a canary one would not want them culled.  Pigeons get a bad press because they are not as aesthetically pleasing as other birds.  Is this why some people resent them so much?

Children seem to love them too unless they are coerced by their parents into thinking that pigeons are ugly or dirty or something to be afraid of.  Yes, the pigeon poop can be a tad unsightly, so is the human waste that is pumped into our beautiful oceans on a daily basis.  Perhaps the city council should be researching and pioneering how to install human sewerage systems that do not have to dangerously 'dump' their waste into our seas instead of using the pigeon poop  mitigation as a reason to cull these little animals.

A spokesman from the council has said: "Pigeons carry Weil's disease, which can cause cardiovascular problems".  Could the council provide further evidence of this, backed up by statistics? 

In their wisdom some people in authority and other members of the general public would prefer to see the pigeons shot to death or poisoned in a mass extermination that will not solve the problem entirely.  The pigeons will eventually regroup and come back. 

The derelict buildings in Stoke on Trent offer a tempting habitat for pigeons to roost and to breed in.  Perhaps the city council should look at solving the derelict building problem foremost if they want to make any worthwhile incursion into the pigeon problem.

Where do the council get their moral dispensation to demonise and then to order the butchering of these birds? Why not try to reduce their numbers by making a large section of them infertile, after all, it is done with cats and dogs and even with cockroaches and such like isn't it?  Anything has to be better than this blinkered wanton slaughter.