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Whatever you may think of Bryant Park's mix of corporate/public mix of public space management, you have to appreciate their organic pest management plan. As a gardener who has had his arrugala and tulips massacred this spring by a mad, local pigeon lady's myrmidons, I find this plan of great personal interest, Best wishes, Adam Honigman [EMAIL PROTECTED] /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ In Bryant Park, Hawks Are Circling and the Pigeons Are Nervous April 17, 2003 By ROBERT F. WORTH On Tuesday morning a man with a shaggy blond beard arrived in Bryant Park and began shaking a dead chick in the air, smiling giddily to himself. Passers-by steered clear. Then, like a sign from the heavens, a large brown bird of prey fluttered down and landed on the man's gloved hand. "Oh my god, it's an eagle!" one woman shrieked. "No, it's a Harris hawk," said the man, who was neither a wandering lunatic nor a seer but a licensed falconer named Thomas Cullen. He and his hawk were scaring - not eating - pigeons, which have been flocking to the park in growing numbers and treating it like a vast private outhouse. "One of the main complaints we receive is people who get hit by pigeon droppings in the park," said Jerome Barth, operations director of the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation. Poisoning pigeons in the park - what you might call the Tom Lehrer solution - is illegal. So the founder of the corporation, Daniel A. Biederman, did some research and learned that city officials in London use falcons to keep pigeons away from the Tower of London. Mr. Biederman looked around to see if someone could do the same thing in New York, and discovered Mr. Cullen, who suggested a weeklong experiment that started on Monday. If it succeeds, he will continue scaring pigeons on a more permanent basis, with help from other falconers, Mr. Cullen said. His modus operandi is simple. The hawks - which he uses for hunting squirrels, rabbits and pheasants near his home in Goshen, N.Y. - are trained to follow him like dogs. Starting about 9 a.m., he walks slowly around the park's rim, luring the bird with dead chicks to make sure it trails him. The hawk could easily kill the slow-moving pigeons, but is not trained to do so, he said. "What we're trying to do," Mr. Cullen said, "is tie into millions of years of evolution that says, if you're a prey species, you really don't want to be under a predator." He flicked his wrist to demonstrate, and the bird - its name is Starbuck - flapped into the trees, with a jingle from the bell attached to one of its talons. Instantly, a dozen pigeons scattered to the park's far side. When the hawk grows tired or disoriented, Mr. Cullen takes it back to a van parked on 40th Street to rest and brings out another one from a white metal crate. If the project continues next week, he will use trained falcons as well. The hawks are not the only birds of prey in the area: a peregrine falcon nests under the M in the MetLife building, not far from the park's northeast corner. But that bird usually hunts only once a day, leaving the pigeons in peace the rest of the time, Mr. Cullen said. The idea behind his program is to terrify the pigeons on such a regular basis that they eventually stop roosting and feeding in Bryant Park. "We're trying to build their stress level," he said, "until they don't find it favorable to stay here." The hawks find their new urban environment a little stressful, too. At lunchtime one of them unexpectedly disappeared high above the park. To find it, Mr. Cullen brought out a scary-looking device that receives radio signals from transmitters attached to the birds' talons. "Is he looking for some nuclear or biological device?" one man asked, glancing nervously at the spiny metal receiver. The receiver traced the bird, and eventually Bill Ponder, another falconer who was helping out, retrieved the bird from the roof of a nearby 14-story building with the assistance of a friendly superintendent. It is too early to say for sure if the anti-pigeon program is working, Mr. Cullen said, since the idea is to alter the pigeons' behavior for the long term. It is certainly keeping the pigeons far from the hawk. And it is delighting the throngs of people who walk through the park or eat lunch there. Almost every time the hawk came down from the trees and landed on Mr. Cullen's hand, a group would form to admire its rust-colored shoulders, white tail and alert brown eyes. Mr. Cullen would explain what he was doing, and say a few words about hawks. In open country, they can recognize prey or another raptor from miles away. Unlike falcons, they strike their prey on the ground. They kill like pythons, choking their prey with strong talons, not with their beaks. The crowd listened raptly. "We don't get many wildlife lectures in Bryant Park," said Linda Durtschi, 41, a legal secretary who works nearby. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/17/nyregion/17HAWK.html?ex=1051680769&ei=1&en=b2a5c5e4239539a4 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company ______________________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. 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