City pigeons: Basel votes, Zurich kills, Bern shows the way
While Bern has been successfully caring for its city pigeons for years and Zurich continues to kill them, on 14 June Basel will decide at the ballot box which path the city will take in future.
In April, a video from Zurich's Stadelhofenplatz went around on social media: game wardens were catching city pigeons and killing them under a cover.
The outrage was considerable, a rally and a motion in the municipal council followed. The incident reveals a contradiction that runs across Switzerland. In Bern, the same birds are cared for; in Zurich, killed; in Basel, turned into a political issue. Every city does as it pleases, and the animals bear the consequences.
City pigeons are not wild animals, but feral domestic pigeons
The starting point of the whole debate is rarely spelled out: the city pigeon is not a wild animal. It descends from the rock dove, which humans have been breeding for more than 7,000 years — as a messenger, as a source of food, as a symbol of peace. Today's city pigeons are feral domestic pigeons, released or escaped descendants of breeding and carrier pigeons. Anyone who domesticates an animal and then leaves it to fend for itself bears responsibility for its fate. It is precisely this responsibility that is reinterpreted as soon as the animals become a nuisance: overnight, the homeless pet becomes a 'pest' that may be combatted. In Switzerland, the feral domestic pigeon is even classed as huntable year-round. To 'regulate' a domesticated animal by means of hunting is not wildlife management, but a flawed approach with a long tradition.
Killing does not reduce the population
The reflex to solve the problem by shooting and trapping fails on biological grounds. Pigeons breed almost all year round, and wherever animals are removed, new ones quickly move in via the food supply that becomes available. Zurich illustrates this: despite repeated killings, around 16,000 pigeons live in the city, leaving behind some 80 tonnes of droppings each year. Basel already kills 200 to 300 birds annually, without the estimated population of around 8,000 pigeons declining. What counts is not the number of animals killed, but the amount of food available. This is precisely where the successful models come in.
Bern and Lucerne show what works
Bern has been managing its city pigeons through the zoo since 2011: supervised dovecotes with clean nesting sites, eggs replaced with dummies, males sterilised. The population fell from around 10,000 in the 1980s and 1990s to a stable 1,500 birds. Lucerne has worked along similar lines since 2001, reducing numbers from roughly 7,000 to around 2,500 pigeons, with the central measure being a consistent crackdown on feeding. The combination is decisive: dovecotes only work if a large share of the birds breed there and wild feeding is stopped at the same time. Without a feeding regime, the effect evaporates because the pigeons keep on breeding outside.
Belgium shows: contraception works, without any killing
Belgium has gone furthest. In the Brussels municipality of Ixelles, automatic feeders have since 2021 been dispensing maize kernels treated with nicarbazin, the only contraceptive authorised for pigeons in Europe; the substance reduces egg production without killing a single animal. After around three years, the population was about 40 per cent lower. The city of Brussels has been expanding its contraceptive feeders ever since, and in neighbouring Zaventem the number of pigeons fell by ten per cent within seven months of the launch in April 2024. Barcelona has also been managing its population through contraceptive feed since 2016, in a way that is gentle on both the pigeons and other bird species.
The costs are remarkable: a single installation costs around 7,400 euros per year in Brussels, including feed, maintenance and monitoring, and thus far less than the removal of pigeon droppings devours. The method does, however, come with one condition: it must run permanently. Ixelles halted its successful programme in 2025 on cost grounds, and within just a few months animal welfare organisations were reporting significantly more pigeons again. The lesson is clear: it is not shot that lowers pigeon populations, but patience and political will. Anyone who combines contraception with supervised dovecotes tackles the problem where it arises, at reproduction, rather than generating it anew with every killing.
What is at stake in Basel
The urban pigeon initiative calls for at least one dovecote per neighbourhood, a strict feeding ban outside the dovecotes, and killing only of sick or injured birds; the population is to be controlled solely through egg replacement. It thus picks up precisely the combination that works in Bern and Lucerne. The canton considers the required number of dovecotes too expensive and proposes, as a counter-proposal, a pilot project with five dovecotes over four years, with killing still permitted. The committee fears that the deliberately small-scale trial will be declared a failure after four years. Animal welfare law is also a sensitive issue: a feeding ban without sufficient dovecotes amounts to letting the birds starve and is barely compatible with the Animal Welfare Act. Anyone who bans feeding must at the same time provide the animals with a controlled feeding and nesting site. On 14 June, Basel voters will decide whether the city follows the Bern model or sticks with the Zurich reflex.
