10/18/2007

Hollywood, California, in an attempt to reduce the population of animals considered to be nuisance, is feeding squirrels, deer, and pigeons OvoControl P birth control pills. The birth control pills are stuffed into a bite-size piece of kibble and left near areas frequented by the animals.

Similar methods have been tried in other California cities and have proven to be remarkably effective. In Berkeley a similar trial reduced squirrel population by up to 66 percent.

OvoControl P, developed by the California company Innolytics, was designed specifically for the purpose of animal population control. In collaboration with the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Innolytics began their attempts with birth control pills by developing products targeting populations of pigeons and Canadian geese.

Pigeons were selected for obvious reasons. Considered a nascence in most urban and suburban areas, pigeons breed quickly and are prediposed to roost in manmade structures. People compound the problem by feeding the birds in parks and city spaces.

The attempt to control populations of Canadian geese is less obvious. Considered a symbol of rural Canada and the United States, the Canada goose species is one of the most widely recognized migratory birds in North America. These are not the birds Innolytics is targeting. As the population of Canadian geese has exploded over the last decade, many have stopped migrating and become 'resident birds' who live in metropolitan areas year-round.

This population increase threatens the birds as well as people. On college campuses, city parks, and other communities, an explosion of resident Canadian geese will quickly become a nascence. A larger issue is the threat that the geese pose to commercial, civilian, and military aircraft. The birth control pill developed for Canadian geese is OvoControl G as opposed to OvoControl P which was developed for the pigeon population.

For the moment, OvoControl P is not an inexpensive solution. It is estimated that it costs $7.50 a day to feed the birth control pill to pigeons. Much of this cost is labor. But if the process is implemented on a large scale, automated feeders will reduce that cost.

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