I wish I could say that I was making this up, but here is an article from the National Post (April 29th) on how the Canadian goernment is dealing with the problem of pigeons on Parliament Hill.

Pigeons being shooed off Parliament Hill by a professional 'We've tried it all'

Tim Naumetz
Southam News
OTTAWA - The federal government is paying $4,800 a month for a "pigeon shooer" to keep the messy birds off Parliament Hill.

The Public Works Department turned to the shooing approach after testing a range of other ways to keep pigeons off the statues, ornate stonework and hidden corners of the Hill, an official said.

"We've tried various methods, from putting in electrical wires, spikes, sonic devices -- you name it, we've tried it all," said Louise Proulx, a department spokeswoman. "The shooing is only temporary, it's a tryout and we're doing that maybe for the next couple of months."

The shooer has already been seen scaring away birds with a long yellow pole.

The concern is not with the birds themselves, but the droppings they let loose at random, even in the ceremonial porte-cochere space under the Peace Tower. The statue of the Queen has been bombed.

Until the pigeon shooer came on board this spring, the department spent $1,800 a month for a commercial high-pressure washer to clean the bad spots regularly. The hose-down had its own negative side effects. "It was damaging the stonework," Ms. Proulx said.

Initially, Hill denizens believed a crew of pigeon-shooers had been hired, because more than one was spotted scaring away birds with a long yellow pole, and one of the shooers himself said there were two shooers on duty.

Not so, said Ms. Proulx. The government is not that extravagant.

"One guy was teaching the other guy how to do it," she explained.

The cost may seem high, but Ms. Proulx said the shooing will take place 12 hours a day, seven days a week. She was unable to explain how that would be done with only one shooer.

The department assigned the high-priced shooing work to a local contractor it hired four months ago for other outdoor cleanup jobs on the Hill, such as sweeping up cigarette butts around doorways, picking chewing gum wads from the walls and maintaining the new RCMP security post at a main entrance.

The shooing cost is in addition to $3,700 the department was already paying the cleanup company, although Ms. Proulx said the shooer will also tidy up the grounds, when he's not busy with pigeons.

"To add the extra duty of shooing the pigeons, it adds $4,800 per month," she explained.

Alliance MP Peter Goldring said it looks suspiciously like costly government make-work.

"What if the pigeons attack one monument after he shoos them away from another?" said Mr. Goldring. "Then he'll need a vehicle to jump from monument to monument, and the vehicle will have to be environmentally friendly, and if the pigeons attack his vehicle while he's shooing them away from the monuments, then we'll need those high-pressure washers to clean his vehicle."

Don Boudria, the Public Works Minister, argued the expenditure was unavoidable.

"I don't know about you, but I don't particularly enjoy what the pigeons do around here, including the destruction of the property that their excrement has caused."