District of North Vancouver council’s on-again/off-again attempts to regulate the keeping of pet pigeons are back, with a new pigeon bylaw set for a vote next week.
After banning the birds in 2019, facing a flurry of now-settled legal challenges and repealing their ban in 2020, council held a public meeting Monday evening exclusively to hear the public’s input on their latest pigeon bylaw.
The new bylaw was intended to reflect the original 1971 bylaw, which allowed residents to keep the birds as pets, albeit with some modernizations, according to staff.
Under the proposed rules, pigeon fanciers will be limited to flocks of no more than 20. They can be kept only in backyard coops of a minimum size with setbacks from neighbouring properties and owners must keep the lofts clean, so they do not attract other wildlife.
At the start of the process, staff said they were aware of just one pigeon owner in the municipality. Since then, they’ve learned there is a second.
When it came to testing the public’s appetite to weigh in, only three speakers made presentations to council, none of whom own pigeons.
Regular council-watcher Corrie Kost submitted almost 100 pages of research he’d compiled from academic sources to support his argument that pigeons should be banned again, not just because they are a nuisance but because they are also a threat to public health, particularly because their droppings are dangerous for children under two and people with compromised immune systems.
“I asked what has happened to your concept, often espoused, to do no harm, and for the rights of citizens to the peaceful enjoyment of one's property?” he asked. “It is now in your hands and I would say that history will be your judge.”
Indian River Crescent resident Peter Teevan also urged council to treat it as a life and death matter, noting a family friend died of a bacterial fungus after too much exposure to seagull droppings.
“To whom do you owe a greater duty of care? To the pigeon keepers? Or to the innocent citizens with weakened immune systems?” he said. “What's going to happen when this all goes bad? If a pigeon roosts on a neighbour's property and poops there, if that neighbour has a compromised immune system, they should not be cleaning it up.”
The concerns, however, were not front of mind for Lisa Kershaw, neighbour to one pigeon fancier in the district. Kershaw questioned the need for council to even address pet pigeons.
“There's been no impact whatsoever on me as an immediate next-door neighbour of a pigeon owner. There's no noise. I can peacefully enjoy my property at all times. There's no smell – nothing. There's no pests in my yard. There's no additional wildlife,” she said. “I don't feel there's any need to change anything at all with the pigeon laws. There's just no burning platform for this.”
Council is expected to vote on the new bylaw at the April 26 meeting.
