Ralph,
I did talk to Jack Wagner yesterday.  He certainly is a friendly and
knowledgeable source.  (Ken, he also was quite eager to talk about the
monkeys.  In fact he had just gotten a call from Japan this week.)  He
asked me to send a photo of the building with some dimensions and he
would make recommendations.  However, for pigeons it seems the only 100%
solution is the horizontal wiring and netting as you mention.  He says,
sound does work on pigeons:  "You can light a firecracker in their ass
and they'll  come back if they can still sit."
Best,
Leland

-----Original Message-----
From: only great work is done in monkish silence
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ralph
Walter
Sent: Friday, October 25, 2002 12:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Pidgeons


Leland,

From my talk with the famous Jack Wagner prior to the New York Athletic
Club, which had some serious pigeon probs, he recommended netting.  The
Club chickened out on some of the netting, so where they didn't net an
open loggia about 9 floors up, they still have pigeons. We also
installed horizontal netting in some areas, which seems to be a nice
place for the little boids to sit (and shit), but at least the bastards
don't nest below it, or fall through it dead.  The size of the netting
has to be worked out, to be sure it keeps out the size birds you have,
but isn't too dense (I've forgotten why that's a problem).

Brooklyn Boro Hall had an electric noise device (about the size of a
coffee can) installed in its cupola to keeep the winged rats out, which
seemed to have worked initially; whether it still does, I don't know.  I
can't find the spec which had the name of this thing, but it's now 15
years old anyway.  Jack Wagner is the guy to talk to about all this
stuff.

Ralph