ITALY:Animal lovers are defying Venice's efforts to starve the pigeon population, writes Tracy Wilkinsonin Venice
THE PIGEONS are hungry.
They march, single-mindedly, beaks thrust forward, beady eyes darting, crisscrossing the stones of St Mark's Square, moving in undulating formation across the open spaces, whirring like helicopters in the distance, dive-bombing at the first hint of a piece of bread or a chip. Soot-gray, with spindly, coral-coloured legs and claws, many just pace, pecking at stone in the hopes it will yield a crumb.
This fabled city's plan to starve away the pigeons seems to be working.
Or maybe not.
Venetian pirates to the rescue! A band of animal lovers armed with skull-and-crossbones flags zips over the choppy Venice lagoon in speedboats. They dock at the palace-lined piazza, lug out 20lb sacks of birdseed and scatter the food for all to eat. Or peck.
The pirate pigeon-lovers have made three lightning raids into St Mark's, the first two at the crack of dawn and now, at midday, to deliberately confront the police and their ban on feeding the birds.
So goes Venice's battle over its ever-multiplying pigeons. "Flying rats", in the view of the mayor - airborne menaces that poop all over precious, centuries-old marble statues. "Cool", in the view of many tourists.
Part One of the city's anti-pigeon plan, launched on May 1st, was to force the 19 licensed bird feed vendors to close their kiosks. Eventually, people trying to feed the birds will be fined, city officials say.
"The problem is the number," said Pierantonio Belcaro, Venice's chief environmental officer. By City Hall's calculation, Venice should accommodate, ideally, about 2,400 pigeons. Instead, he said, there are 60,000.
"Overfeeding is a problem because those that are ill and not strong live longer than they should," Belcaro said from his office overlooking the Grand Canal. Plus, the ornate nooks and crannies of Venice's Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance towers and palazzos provide abundant places for pigeons to roost and reproduce.
The overpopulation of pigeons, the city says, damages art and architecture, costs millions in cleanup and repair, spreads disease and draws endless complaints from hoteliers, restaurateurs and other merchants who say their customers are being attacked.
Officials argue that the pigeons' highly acidic guano seeps into fissures in thousands of marble monuments and building facades, weakening the structures. In addition, they scratch and peck at the marble, seeking its calcium content as a nutrient, doing further, costly damage.
Renata Codello, an official with the Italian cultural works ministry, says the pigeons are destroying Venice's architectural heritage. The poop, she says, is a biohazard, igniting a chain reaction producing algae, spores and fungus, while the birds are potential carriers of diseases and nasty bugs. In a report last year she recommended an "urgent" reduction of feeding.
Pigeon supporters dispute the official contentions, saying the steady erosion of monuments, mosaics and architecture is a long-term problem that is caused at least as much by pollution and the onslaught of reckless visitors. And they say the city must be more humane in thinning out the flocks.
"They treat the pigeons like they were demons," said Paolo Mocavero, head of the 100 Percent Animalisti organisation that conducts the pirate feeding operations.
Even in the first weeks of the birdseed ban policy (pirate feedings aside), Belcaro said he already sees success in a notable decline in the number of birds congregating in St Mark's Square.
True, there may be slightly fewer of them, but they seem to be getting a bit more aggressive. After all, food shortages often lead to riots.
Under the porticos of the Doges' Palace on a sun-filled late morning in May, one pigeon went after a woman with an apple. She danced and bobbed to get away, screaming, "Let me go! Go away!" Still, most of the waddling bevies of tourists seemed to delight in the pigeons. Americans, Russians and Japanese played the stunt of stretching out arms, then squealing when birds alighted, as friends and family snapped photos. One Spanish-speaking woman had no fewer than 10 pigeons on her arms, shoulders, head and purse. Real Hitchcock material.
Francesca Bortolotto Possati, chief executive of Venice's very fancy Bauer Hotel, with its Murano glass chandeliers and python-skin-covered lobby chairs, says she has done everything to rid her fabulous rooftop terrace of annoying pigeons who literally try to steal the panini from guests' hands. They tried fishnet tenting, artificial decoy hawks (the wind blew them into the lagoon) and, finally, ultrasound, which only seemed to bother the guests, she said.
Aside from the hungry pigeons, the other real casualties of the city's new policy are the erstwhile vendors. They've been forced to pack up the stands where for decades they had sold birdseed, tuppence a bag. Well, €1 a bag.
The city has offered the vendors the chance to set up souvenir stands. But does Venice really need more of those?
"The pigeons are a part of the history of Venice," vendor Daniela D'Este said. Take away the pigeons, she said, and "it's like Venice without the gondolas".