For those of you not familiar with San Francisco, we have a ton of pigeons. I'm sure that's true for any metropolitan area. One reason they might hang around is because our tall buildings replicate their original habitat: cliffs; not to mention all the free food they get.

We have a real pigeon population problem but recently I noticed something different about them. Almost every single bird has something wrong with them. Either they can't fly anymore, they have a foot missing, their claws are misshapen; the list could go on and on.

Why have we forsaken one of our most precious resources from the past? Pigeons are, in part, doves, or "rock doves". They've served in wars, helped in mail transport, given fertilizer, produced entertainment (as racers). Yes they defecate on our buildings and streets, but they're still animals.

S.F. has tried to get rid of them without the help of avicides. They've tried banning food distribution from citizens although I'm not sure San Francisco's clean enough to keep these birds away. We might not directly feed them, but once we drop a half eaten bagel, they swarm, because now they're starving.

What can we do to help this poor yet vast group of birds? Perhaps we could create aviaries for them to live in. This way we can track their reproduction activity and somehow decrease it. Also an aviary would keep them from defacing public property. In addition, this would provide a new and different service to the community and create jobs. Lastly, this would lift the ban on feeding pigeons as they wouldn't be roaming our streets.

Hopefully this would help the pigeons live happily and healthily.