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Following Stephanie

I met Stephanie on a wet, cold January day in 2023. She was feeding pigeons corn, which in my part of Brussels is not supposed to be allowed. Pigeons are described by many people as rats with wings. They are despised because they create a mess, are dirty, and are a nuisance.

Stephanie walks 11 kilometers every day to feed pigeons corn in very specific places along her route. She finds places away from cafes and restaurants where people eat and drop food. I learned that there is a project to feed pigeons in Brussels corn laced with a chemical that acts not only as a bird anti-parasitic medicine but also as a very short-term and non-harmful bird contraceptive. In the places in Brussels that have put large heavy metal feeding bins and fed pigeons with the doctored corn, the bird population has been reduced by 50 to 60% over a couple of years. She is trying to persuade the communes to invest in more feeding bins but with limited success. 

In following Stephanie my eyes have been opened to how humans have a standard of behavior for animals and nature that we do not seem to be able to live up to ourselves. We are far more destructive than pigeons.