Copyright Times Publishing Co. Nov 9, 2001

The city has outlawed all feeding of birds in parks, streets and on sidewalks.

The St. Petersburg City Council passed an emergency law by a 7-0 vote Thursday after an unusual debate over how to best control one couple who routinely feed flocks of pigeons in a neighborhood park.

Members couldn't think of a way to distinguish between that couple and children or senior citizens who occasionally toss a few bread crumbs to pigeons.

"This would enjoin any and all pigeon feeding," council member Bill Foster observed.

The legislative emergency arose over concerns about pigeon droppings. Fungi and bacteria from the droppings can make some people sick, especially children and elderly people, according to a letter from physician Paul J. Knox.

Lots of pigeon excrement remain after John Bryant and his wife feed pigeons daily in a park at Sunset Drive and Central Avenue in western St. Petersburg, neighbors say. City Attorney John Wolfe noted that pathogens in the dried droppings on the park's grass can be dispersed for up to two blocks by a lawn mower.

Bryant and his wife reportedly sit on a blanket dressed in sweat suits, put on industrial goggles and set out bird seed. Pigeons swarm them.

Bryant has been on the council agenda before. After council members heard that Bryant dumped his urine from a cup into the park, the council banned that activity last month.

Unable to regulate the excretory habits of the birds, the council turned its attention to Bryant's feeding, which causes lots of them to congregate.

"The thing that bothers me is that we have spent a lot of our time and staff time dealing with one individual," said council member John Bryan, who has taken ribbing from colleagues because his name is similar to the man in question. Bryan left the meeting before the vote Thursday.

He missed much of the delicate oratory.

"The health hazards that are attendant to a large amount of pigeons are attendant to a small amount of pigeons," Wolfe said, explaining why it was difficult to let kids or senior citizens keep feeding the birds.

Still, council member Jay Lasita lamented the heavy-handedness of a ban, saying, "It is clear who is abusing this pigeon feeding and who is not."

Wolfe suggested allowing each person to distribute "less than 4 ounces of feed over a four-hour period," but council member Richard Kriseman worried about overreaching.

"A loaf of bread for people who like to feed ducks may weigh a pound," he said. "But a pound is a lot of pigeon feed."

But Wolfe said his 4-ounce threshold "allows the child to throw bread crumbs - five, six slices of bread if they want."

Then Foster pointed out that Bryant and his wife would each qualify for a 4-ounce daily quota of birdseed, enough to continue their ritual.

"A half a pound of birdseed spread over their little blanket is still going to be the same in the mind of the bird," Foster said.

In the end, Kriseman pleaded for the feeding ban to address the problems that Bryant's feeding ritual has caused in his district. The emergency law expires Dec. 13. Meanwhile, the council will try to write a permanent one that draws a finer line.

Even under the emergency ordinance, people can throw food into a lake or pond to feed "aquatic birds." Those include but are not limited to ducks, geese, herons, moorhens, egrets, ospreys, ibis, redwing blackbirds, gallinules, anhingas and gulls, the law notes. And you can still feed pelicans at the Pier.

Bryant, who bills himself as a mathematician, genius, poet and political philosopher, seems to relish the controversy, posting a summary of it on his Web site, www.thebirdman.org.

"I am glad you think I am so important that you are willing to contemplate hurting so many people just to get at me," Bryant wrote in an open letter to the council. "And I am glad you are helping to secure my place in the Guinness Book of World Records with so many laws passed against me. Yours, including the emergency ordinance, will make six."