My town's ban on feeding pigeons is actually the reason they won't go away

I used to shoo pigeons away from my porch every morning in Portland, until a wildlife officer told me they're legally protected under a 1956 law that says you can't disturb them at all (even with a broom). Turns out I was breaking the law by trying to stop them from pooping on my car, which is what made them hang around in the first place. Has anyone else found a dumb law that actually causes the problem it's supposed to fix?

4 comments

4 Comments

gavin2281mo agoMost Upvoted

That "legally protected" thing sounds like a stretch. Like are cops really out there writing tickets for waving a broom at a pigeon? I call BS on that. Probably some guy just wanted you to stop bothering him so he made up a law. I've chased pigeons off my balcony for years with a water bottle and nobody ever showed up with handcuffs. Least of my worries honestly.

riverh491mo ago

@carter.joseph is right about the buzzword thing. I had a buddy who lived in a condo downtown and his neighbor actually printed out some city code about migratory birds after he shooed a pigeon off his AC unit with a broom. Nothing ever came of it, but it was funny seeing a grown man wave a piece of paper about pigeon rights. So yeah, people definitely just use "legally protected" to be annoying, not because cops actually enforce it lol.

fiona_kim1mo ago

Wait, has anyone actually looked up the local ordinances on this? I had a friend who got a passive-aggressive warning from a neighbor for trying to chase off pigeons with a stick, and the neighbor threatened to call animal control. Nothing happened, but it made him paranoid enough to just leave them be. Seems like most cops wouldn't know a pigeon law if it flew into their patrol car.

carter.joseph1mo ago

Maybe the issue is less about the law itself and more about how people use "protected" as a buzzword to shut down a conversation they don't like. Pigeons might be legally protected in some weird loop hole way in certain cities, but nobody's getting a ticket for shooing them off with a broom unless you're actively harming them in front of a cop who's having a bad day.