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AMERICAN FALLS, Idaho — City residents were shocked to see pigeons stumbling out into the road, unable to fly and then falling over dead over the last weekend.
American Falls city employees have collected about 40 dead pigeons since Oct. 25, and officials with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game have collected some of the birds for testing. This occurred after a private restoration company allegedly trapped the birds in a dilapidated building at 575 Fort Hall Ave., where flocks lived for years.
"It is absolutely terrible," said Amy Larsen, owner of Magnolia's Salon, which is right next door to the building. "I think it's terrible that these birds are just (dying). It's sad to watch them."
Larsen said the building, which she called the Trading Post, has been occupied by nothing but pigeons for the last three years since she's operated her salon. At some point after the building was abandoned, the roof collapsed, which allowed the pigeons to move in.
According to American Falls Mayor Rebekah Sorenson, the city estimates there were somewhere between 200 and 300 birds in the building.
Larsen first learned something new was happening on Friday at about noon when she exited her salon after working for a few hours.
"There were dead pigeons everywhere," Larsen said. "On the sidewalks, up against my building, in the alleyway — they were just everywhere."
While Larsen estimated there were about 15 to 20 dead pigeons in her immediate vicinity, "the whole top of the building was covered with live pigeons," she said. "If you made a noise in the alleyway, they all started flying."
Sorenson said the city police department received a call complaining about the pigeons around three or four weeks ago. After visiting the property, an officer informed the property manager of the problem.
"Someone had come in and closed up the building and was aware that pigeons were living in there but didn't shew them out or anything, just closed it and left them to die in there without food and water," Sorenson said.
Looking in the alleyway on that afternoon, Larsen saw the side door in the alleyway between the two buildings was open. Sorenson confirmed that a city employee did this.
"When someone got wind that there are birds slowly dying of starvation and dehydration, it tugged at their heartstrings, and someone went and opened the door to give the dying birds a chance," Sorenson said. "That's when they started coming out, and a lot of weak ones got run over in the road because they couldn't fly and wandered out into traffic. Other ones were trying to find something to eat, or were too far gone and just died."
Larsen found that even when people got within a foot of pigeons on the ground, they wouldn't move.
"They don't fly away; they don't try to get away. Even when you honk your horn, they don't move because they don't know what's going on," Larsen said.
While the city has picked up about 40 dead birds, this doesn't include any birds that citizens have picked up.
On Friday, Idaho Fish and Game collected some of the birds to test them for a wide variety of potential diseases. Department spokeswoman Jennifer Jackson hopes they'll have the results of those tests this week. Given pigeons more commonly carry a number of diseases and given the conditions the birds were living in, there are a number of illnesses they could potentially carry.
"My guess is they will start looking at the condition of the birds when they get them and also take into account some of the behavior of the birds when they were discovered, and that could maybe help them narrow down the kinds of tests and what they're looking for," Jackson said.
The fish and game officers who responded to the scene on Friday afternoon "discovered roughly 200 birds that were either dead or having difficulty walking and flying," Jackson said.
The number of birds found dead and still flying around the area has made Larsen and her customers concerned for their health. While most of the dead birds were cleaned off the road by Monday, she has still had clients call her and cancel their appointments due to their concerns.
The birds circling in the sky have also made people nervous about walking around in the area. One of Larsen's clients ran to her car with her sweater over her head, and her daughter witnessed a bird try to fly through another car's window.
As of Monday afternoon, the building's door had been closed, and birds had been cleared out. According to Sorenson, a new restoration company is working on the property.
EastIdahoNews.com has not learned the name of the restoration company tasked with handling the building.
Over the weekend, several rumors have been shared about the cause of the dying pigeons.
"All over Facebook all weekend, it's been nothing but speculation. Some people are saying bird flu, some people are saying it's suspicious. I mean, it gets blown out of proportion to the max," Larsen said.
Sorenson wouldn't be surprised if fish and game officials found out the pigeons were carrying some sort of disease, considering that they were living in close quarters.
"But this isn't some county-wide incident. This isn't an epidemic. This is a very isolated scenario (due to) poor decision-making (which) all could have been very easily avoided," Sorenson said.
