The Atlantic’s John Metcalfe asks, “Why aren’t cities littered with dead pigeons?”

The favorite rumpus room of the pigeon, New York City, is thought to contain anywhere between 1 and 7 million of the flapping rats of the sky.

So where are all the dead ones?

The dog I had when I was young would chase after pigeons for her first year. Never did catch one. That was probably a good thing after seeing some of the videos accompanying this article.

Pigeons were seen attacking a baby peregrine falcon. The chick either fell from it’s nest or was abandoned by it’s mother. A man rescued the bird and it’s now recovering in an animal hospital. A few days later comes word of a second falcon chick being attacked by pigeons.

When I was a young kid, I used to think that at some point, when the pigeons have enough babies, they were going to attack all the humans and take over the world. It may be starting.

The U.S. Armed Forces can’t keep it’s Times Square recruiting center clear of pigeons, so they installed a speaker system on the roof that produces pigeon predator noises:

The pigeons, having abandoned the southern end of the recruiting station roof, where the speakers are, stay put on the northern end.

Forget Iran and North Korea!  Call the Iraq Study Group back to the table!  The U.S. Armed Forces have bigger problems to deal with.

Does the U.S. Army think that some sounds of a fake predator, that NYC pigeons have probably never seen or heard, would scare off city hardened birds of opportunity?  Especially those in Times Square?  Is that tactic part of their normal arsenal, and has it worked against humans?  If so, we may need to reevaluate our position as the most intelligent species (the pigeons, as far as I can tell, do not have a Paris Hilton to bring down their collective average intelligence).

Speaking from experience, if pigeons are not afraid of going into an apartment and attacking its occupant for a nice looking wire, and if pigeons get their jollies pooping on people, then what makes the Army think they can shoo them away with some noise or metal spikes.