Blind woman warns of pigeon poop exposure danger Social Sharing

Blind woman warns of pigeon poop exposure danger Social Sharing

A young woman in Fredericton is singing on the street to call attention to the disease that made her blind.

Erica Richards lost her sight last year after developing Cryptococcus meningitis.

Cryptococcus meningitis is a potentially fatal swelling of the membranes surrounding the brain. The disease is caused by fungus that lives in the guts of pigeons and other birds, such as chickens.

People can breathe it in if they’re exposed to pigeon droppings.

The 24-year-old was living in a house that had a pile of pigeon feces in the attic, and she also had a compromised immune system from chemotherapy .

“A reverse migraine — I needed light, I needed sound. I needed neck massages. Couldn’t lay down, couldn’t sit up. Couldn’t eat. I was vomiting. And then I started having double vision, quadruple vision, then seizures. And then I ended up in hospital,” she said as she described her symptoms.

Richards sings to supplement her $135 a month disability payment.

Kevin Forward is an infectious disease specialist who teaches at Dalhousie Medical School in Halifax.

“I think it’s pretty common sense. Move to avoid being in a situation where there are a lot of pigeon droppings, particularly if you’re disturbing them, cleaning them up, sweeping them,” Forward said.

“Those kind of situations should certainly be avoided. But if you’re in the park that has some pigeons around, I think the risk is infinitely small.”

Pigeons are part of the urban landscape, but they are known to carry a long list of disease-causing organisms — such as Chlamydia and salmonella.

That, along with complaints about them damaging roofs, led Fredericton to add pigeons to the city’s animal control bylaw last year.

Property owners are now prohibited from spreading feed or anything else that would attract pigeons.

Richards wants to make sure people know the risk of coming into contact with pigeon feces.

“To draw attention, to raise awareness so people will ask questions, so they will know what the symptoms are,” Richards said. “So that way, they can be warned ahead of time, before what happened to me happens to them.”

Next month, she’ll be going to a school sponsored by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind to finish high school and to get matched with a seeing-eye dog.

She hopes to go on to study law.

 

Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.

Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.

Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca

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Belgian racing pigeon sells for record £1.4million

Belgian racing pigeon sells for record £1.4million

A racing pigeon from Belgium has set a new world record after being sold for more than £1.4million.

New Kim, a three-year-old female, was initially put up for auction for just €200, but after a two-week bidding war she fetched a staggering €1.6 million.

During a frantic last half-hour, two Chinese bidders operating under the pseudonyms of Super Duper and Hitman drove up the price by £251,000 (€280,000). Super Duper submitted the winning bid.

The bird’s breeder and owner Kurt Van de Wouwer said he and his family were “in shock” at the news.Nikolaas Gyselbrecht, founder of Pipa auction house for racing pigeons, shows off the prized birdThe final total left the previous record set by fellow Belgian-bred bird, Armando, trailing behind by around £314,000 (€350,000).

Armando, who was nicknamed the “Lewis Hamilton of pigeons” for his racing prowess, was retired when he was put up for sale in 2019.

New Kim won a number of competitions in 2018 but has also now retired.

Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Bird Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.

Voted Best Canadian wholesaler for Bird Deterrent products ten years in a row.

Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca

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Pigeon droppings and public health

Pigeon droppings and public health

Chlamydophila psittaciPigeon droppings and public health, Disease risk from pigeon droppings is often used to justify killing pigeons, but fresh bird droppings have not been shown to present a health risk.

People may fear that pigeons roosting or nesting nearby, or more specifically the droppings that accompany such sites, are a health threat. These fears usually focus on histoplasmosis, a fungus that grows in dropping-enriched soil, and on diseases caused by Cryptococcus and Salmonella. However, there is little evidence linking pigeons directly to human infections.

Histoplasmosis fungus is common in the eastern and central U.S. As many as 80 percent of people tested in these areas prove to have already been exposed to the fungus without knowing.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, fresh bird droppings on surfaces such as sidewalks and windowsills have not been shown to present a health risk. People should avoid contact with any animal droppings, of course, and ordinary good hygiene, such as washing hands and leaving shoes at the door, are adequate prevention if you accidentally come into contact with animal droppings.

About Pigeon Patrol:

Pigeon Patrol Products & Services is the leading manufacturer and distributor of bird deterrent (control) products in Canada. Pigeon Patrol products have solved pest bird problems in industrial, commercial, and residential settings since 2000, by using safe and humane bird deterrents with only bird and animal friendly solutions. At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.

Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca

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Darwin right proved by pigeon genomes

Darwin right proved by pigeon genomes

Darwin right proved by pigeon genomes. Humans have shaped the domestic pigeon into hundreds of breeds of various shapes, colours and attributes — a diversity that captivated Charles Darwin, who even conducted breeding experiments on his own pigeons. Now, a number of domestic and feral pigeon genomes have been sequenced for the first time, giving scientists a resource for studying the genetics of how these traits evolved.pigeon perched on a bar.

The study, published online today in Science1, gives insight into the genetics of both ‘fancy’ domestic breeds and plain street pigeons and supports their common origin from the wild rock dove (Columba livia). “We go from having virtually no genetic or genomic resources available for the pigeon to being able to map regions associated with particular traits,” says team member Michael Shapiro, a biologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

All in the family

The Utah team, along with Jun Wang and colleagues at BGI-Shenzhen in China and scientists at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, sequenced a complete ‘reference’ genome from a breed called the Danish tumbler. The researchers also sequenced the pigeon genomes of 36 different fancy breeds and of two feral birds from different regions of the US.

The study fills in knowledge about the relationships between breeds, many of which are centuries old with origins in the Middle East. Darwin argued that all domestic pigeon breeds descended from the wild rock dove. Shapiro says this study puts data behind that argument, as all the breeds sequenced are more similar genetically to one another than to another, closely related, species of pigeon, C. rupestris. It also found that street pigeons are genetically similar to racing homing pigeons, which frequently escape into the wild.

Ornament and utility

One question is whether similar traits in different breeds, such as flouncy leg feathers or short beaks, are caused by the same genetic mutations. The researchers analysed head crests, feathers growing in the reverse direction to normal that vary from short tufts to outrageous manes that envelop the head. Breeding studies by pigeon fanciers suggested that head crests were caused by a simple recessive mutation. Using software developed for finding genes that underlie human diseases, the researchers analysed crested and uncrested breeds, and discovered a mutation in a gene that matched the crests in all cases. The results suggest that the mutation evolved just once in the species.

Head crests, Shapiro said, are “one of many traits that we see in domestic pigeons that have a correlate in lots of natural species of birds,” where they are used in courtship and displays of aggression. Further research will be able to discover whether the same gene is involved in creating crests in other species. In similar fashion, Shapiro says, scientists can use pigeon genetics to study the emergence of more complex traits.

Leif Andersson, who studies domestic animal genetics at Uppsala University in Sweden, says that the work addresses a gap in our knowledge about pigeons, which has lagged behind that of chickens, pigs and dogs. Domesticated species are important tools for comparative genomics, with traits honed by humans over thousands of years. “The different domestic animals complement each other,” he says, “because they’ve been selected for different purposes.”

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At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.

Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca

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Rare virus from pigeons ‘can spread to humans’

Rare virus from pigeons ‘can spread to humans’

A rare virus that can be contracted by humans has killed a large number of Victorian pigeons after being detected in Australia for the first time.

disease

A type of avian paramyxovirus has resulted in the deaths of a number of hobby pigeon flocks.

Australian chief veterinary officer Dr Mark Schipp said the birds had died suddenly in large numbers.

The birds had sometimes appeared tired or shown neurological signs such as circling or head flicking before death.

He said human infection was extremely rare and usually occurred after contact with an infected bird.

“The rare virus causes only mild, short-term conjunctivitis or influenza-like symptoms [in humans],’’ Dr Schipp said.

“State veterinary authorities have been asked to review the health of their pigeon and poultry flocks.

“At this stage, there are no reports of this virus causing disease in wild birds, but we have asked the Australian Wildlife Health Network to be alert to this possibility.’’

Dr Schipp said the national Consultative Committee on Emergency Animal Disease had met twice to discuss the outbreak, which is being managed by Victorian chief veterinary officer Dr Hugh Millar and industry and veterinary authorities.

Dr Schipp said the consultative committee has agreed to investigating pigeon and other bird holdings where disease is suspected and to quarantine affected properties.

Anyone concerned about their pigeons or birds should contact an experienced poultry veterinarian, their local department of agriculture, or the Emergency Animal Disease Watch hotline on 1800 675 888.

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At Pigeon Patrol, we manufacture and offer a variety of bird deterrents, ranging from Ultra-flex Bird Spikes with UV protection, Bird Netting, 4-S Gel and the best Ultrasonic and audible sound devices on the market today.

Contact us at 1- 877– 4– NO-BIRD, (604) 585-9279 or visit our website at www.pigeonpatrol.ca

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