AR-News: (London) Pigeons hung out to die

[D. Roth]

*Pigeons hung out to die*

May 25 2004

By Keely Sherbird, South London Press

*PIGEON carcasses lie rotting in netting just feet above the heads of 
shoppers.*

When animal lover Rosemary Hines visited the market in Deptford High 
Street she was appalled by the sight of skeletal and decaying birds 
stuck in the nets under the railway bridge.

Mrs Hines, of Melling Street, Plumstead, said: "It's terrible. It just 
makes you want to cry that someone could be so inhumane to put a net up 
that catches their feet and kills them.

"People must hear them fluttering. I was just shopping in Deptford High 
Street, but it's put me off going back. It makes you feel ill.

"They are hanging all over the place."

A spokeswoman for Network Rail said the netting was installed by 
Lewisham council some years ago under a licensing agreement during the 
days of Railtrack.

Now, neither Network Rail nor the council is responsible for maintaining 
the netting, so they are talking to each other to work the issue out.

The spokeswoman added: "There are some pigeons in the netting. It's not 
Network Rail's responsibility to remove them, but as a gesture of 
goodwill we will go out and remove the carcasses. In the long term, we 
have carried out an assessment of the netting and put it on to our 
programme of works."

She said the company would be carrying out pigeon proofing in the autumn 
at the earliest.

What do you think about the nets killing birds?

Write to South London Press, 2-4 Leigham Court Road, Streatham, SW16 2PD 
or email letters at slp.co.uk <mailto:letters at slp.co.uk>

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