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Chances are if your SkyTrain stops inexplicably and then starts moving again in a couple of minutes — not even enough time to find out on Twitter what the heck’s wrong — that a pigeon has tripped an alarm.

“Even a feather can set off a laser alarm,” said Jill Drews, senior issues management adviser at TransLink. “And when an alarm goes off, we have to stop the trains.”

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Nuisance pigeons being fed birth control at a Vancouver SkyTrain station Back to video

TransLink has undertaken the usual measures to keep pigeons away, such as spikes and netting; now they’re using birth control, installing automatic feeders that, along with corn, contain contraceptives.

“It’s about time someone invented that (the bird contraceptive),” said Sara Dubois, an adjunct professor of applied biology at UBC and an expert on animal welfare. “Health Canada approved it last year.”

The birth control is called OvoControl, is said to be non-toxic and only has contraceptive effects in birds.

Apparently you can’t just zap the birds like they’re giant mosquitoes. This humane approach will reduce the pigeon population near SkyTrain stations by 50 per cent a year, Dubois said.