Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona, Castell dels Tres Dragons, Parc Ciutadella, Barcelona, 08003, Spain.
Agencia de Salut Publica de Barcelona, and CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Pública, Pl. Lesseps, 1, Barcelona, 08023, Spain.
Pest Manag Sci. 2021 Jan;77(1):131-137. doi: 10.1002/ps.6000. Epub 2020 Sep 3.
Nicarbazin is an anti-coccidial product sometimes used as a contraceptive to reduce the size of feral pigeon populations. However, its effectiveness in reducing pigeon population size in cities has caused some controversy. Here, we evaluate its effectiveness in the city of Barcelona.
In 2017, the Barcelona City Council set 23 feeding stations with nicarbazin and ten with placebo (untreated corn). Censuses were undertaken before and after one year of treatment, within a 200-m radius around each feeder. We also censused 28 circles of 200 m radius distributed randomly 200 m from the feeders and 28 circles > 500 m from the feeders, which acted as controls. Population size across the whole city was also evaluated pre- and post treatment. We found that feral pigeon density did not change after one year of treatment, either in the circles around feeding stations with nicarbazin or in the areas around control stations at 200 and > 500 m from the feeders. Population size in placebo circles rose after a year by 10%. A pigeon census for the whole of Barcelona showed a 10% increase.
Overall, our results indicate that the nicarbazin treatment had no effect on feral pigeon population size, and we advise against its use as a pigeon control method, at least in large cities.
尼卡巴嗪是一种抗球虫药，有时被用作避孕药来减少野鸽种群的数量。然而，它在减少城市中鸽子数量方面的有效性引起了一些争议。在这里，我们评估了它在巴塞罗那市的效果。
2017 年，巴塞罗那市议会在 23 个投喂点设置了尼卡巴嗪，10 个投喂点设置了安慰剂（未处理的玉米）。在治疗前和治疗后一年，我们在每个投喂器周围 200 米的半径范围内进行了普查。我们还在距离投喂器 200 米的半径范围内随机分布了 28 个 200 米的圆圈，并在距离投喂器> 500 米的地方进行了 28 个圆圈的普查，作为对照。我们还评估了整个城市的人口数量在治疗前后的变化。我们发现，经过一年的治疗，无论是在投喂尼卡巴嗪的投喂站周围的圆圈内，还是在距离投喂站 200 米和> 500 米的控制站周围，野鸽的密度都没有变化。一年后，安慰剂圈的鸽子数量增加了 10%。整个巴塞罗那的鸽子普查显示鸽子数量增加了 10%。
总的来说，我们的结果表明，尼卡巴嗪的治疗对野鸽种群数量没有影响，我们不建议将其用作控制鸽子的方法，至少在大城市中不建议使用。
