The pigeon, a ubiquitous civic irritant whose garbanzo-sized brain has made it a byword for witlessness, has received an unexpected public bequest from Portugal’s largest city.

Its own safe space.

For a cost of €12,000, Lisbon has restored a towering birdhouse replete with fresh water, gourmet bird food and a wood-paneled interior designed, city officials say, to promote pigeon wellness.

The two-story yellow roost, known as a “contraceptive pigeon house,” is part of the city’s effort to control its bird population through means that are gentler than other extermination ploys, which include gassing them to death and feeding them to reptiles at the zoo.

The scheme involves plying pigeons with delicious ground corn to lure them to luxuriant nests inside the house, where they will eventually forget centuries of human mistreatment. When the unsuspecting birds lay eggs in their nests, caretakers sneak in to replace them with realistic-looking fake ones. To ensure mother pigeons don’t get suspicious, at least one real egg is left in place.


Since the house opened, however, its mission seems to have crept beyond population control. Caretakers have equipped the facility, which costs €250 per month to maintain, with a pigeon first-aid station. There’s talk of offering additional services such as deworming and, paradoxically, a nursery.

“We want to give the pigeons security and a space that is only theirs,” says Joana Antunes, a 28-year-old lawyer who oversees the house with five other volunteers.

“Pigeons deserve and need dignity and quality of life,” she says.

The bird house that now hosts Lisbon's pilot project to control the pigeon population. Photo: Patricia Kowsmann/The Wall Street Journal

Across Europe, cities have been experimenting with pigeon eradication methods that are somewhat more sophisticated and humane than chasing them around with giant nets.


Barcelona created feeding centers where machines dispense contraceptive corn. Paris spends €22,000 per year on nesting areas where pigeon eggs are shaken so they won’t develop. The U.K.’s Pigeon Control Advisory Service advises “using a non-lethal and holistic approach” to reduce pigeon numbers. This includes covering the eggs with paraffin oil to keep them from hatching.

In Lisbon, where city officials say the bird population is above the normal level of five for every human, pigeons swarm cafes in search of table scraps. Their droppings crown the city’s statues and coat its antique architecture.

The city acquired some of Barcelona’s contraceptive corn but quickly discovered that Lisboner pigeons ignored it in favor of discarded fast food. A pilot program to feed pigeons to zoo reptiles seemed like a win-win until it drew complaints from animal rights groups.

Children play with pigeons in Lisbon in May, 2015. Photo: Hugo Correia/REUTERS

A glorious-sounding plan to release falcons to hunt the city’s pigeons also hit a snag. “The sight of predators devouring pigeons in front of kids at the park was just too much,” said Victor Vieira, Lisbon’s director of public hygiene.


The contraceptive birdhouse, which opened as a pilot program in the northwestern neighborhood of Benfica, has a bright future. The city plans to open 23 more pigeon houses—one for each of its districts—aiming to build the next seven of them for €75,000.

The obvious question, of course, is whether coddling pigeons is an effective way to hold down the population. So far, only a dozen pigeons have moved into the house, and Mr. Vieira, the hygiene director, said his office still gets 300 to 400 calls a month from citizens whose homes, cars and clothing have been slathered in droppings.

Cristina Saiago, who is fighting a losing battle to keep bird feces off the flowers hanging from her balcony, is one of many Lisboners whose view of the birds is considerably less munificent.

“Pigeons are flying rats,” she said.

At Frankfurt Central Station in Germany, pigeons roost on signs, look for food and roam the platforms, mingling with daily commuters. Photo: Ellen Emmerentze Jervell/The Wall Street Journal. Originally published 3/31/2015

Regina Gato, a retiree who lives in Benfica—the site of the first birdhouse—said it took only days for a recently renovated fountain there to become crusted in pigeon poop. “I just want authorities to sort it out,” she said. “I’m very animal friendly, but don’t we kill pigs, cows and chickens without flinching?”


Miguel de Sepulveda Velloso, a member of Movimento Fórum Cidadania Lisboa, a civic group that seeks to safeguard Lisbon’s historic buildings from hazards—including bird droppings—said he thinks treating pigeons as if they were humans is a bit much. “Pigeons are a plague and should be treated as such,” he said.

A few years ago, Ms. Antunes, the caretaker, said she first noticed the plight of pigeons when she was volunteering to help stray cats and dogs. She began rescuing some of the birds but discovered they had no support network. “I couldn’t find organizations that accepted them,” she recalled.

Inside Lisbon’s contraceptive pigeon house, birds lay eggs (left) that are replaced by fake ones (right) to control their population. Photo: Patricia Kowsmann/The Wall Street Journal

In 2015, Ms. Antunes delivered a speech at an animal rights march in Lisbon, calling for pigeon protections. That attracted followers who helped her found a pigeon rights group called “For the Life and Dignity of the Pigeons.”

“I realized how affectionate and intelligent they are,” Ms. Antunes said. “They are very sensitive creatures.”

Her proposal to create the shelters was met with resistance by neighborhood councils responsible for overseeing them, said Celia Costa, who coordinates the project for city hall. The technique’s adoption, she added, was “far from being consensual.”

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Nesting shelves inside the pigeon house project in Lisbon where pigeons are fed with gourmet food, given fresh water and have their laid eggs replaced by fakes to control the population. Photo: Patricia Kowsmann/The Wall Street Journal

Pigeon caretakers have clashed with the city at times. Their demand to install a fire alarm and video surveillance to protect the birds from potential saboteurs was rejected. When the city tried to equip the house with a data-gathering sensor, Ms. Antunes and her cohorts nixed the idea, saying the devices emitted harmful radiation.

Since the shelter opened in May, the birds haven’t exactly flocked to it. A dozen of the house’s 63 total nests are occupied. As a result, only 111 eggs—including some found outside the house—have been confiscated. The city continues to catch and gas the birds, killing anywhere between 20 and 400 on a given day for a cost of €500.

Nevertheless, Ms. Antunes and her caretaker colleagues are already planning the next phase of pigeon-pampering. “Soon we want to get a box to house the babies, to raise them and make sure they like it here enough to lay their own eggs,” she said.