Campus

Foreign eye

‘Don’t Feed the Birds’. These kind of signs sprung up recently in my neighborhood, an area predominantly occupied by immigrants and foreign students.

Feeding the birds has become a bit of a political issue lately, with the right-wing PVV party leader Geert Wilders stirring up a controversy saying foreigners cause problems by feeding pigeons in the street. I must admit, when I first came to the Netherlands, I fed pigeons freely in parks and other public places, not understanding the dirty looks from passers-by. While in Ukraine (as in many other countries), pigeons are treated as fluffy cute birds, here they’re considered dirty, disease-spreading vermin. And these kind of labels tend to be self-fulfilling: the Dutch city pigeons are much less plump and shiny than their well-loved Ukrainian cousins. Cut off from loving and plentiful human-provided food supplies, the Dutch birds must scavenge dumpsters and sidewalks for rotting leftovers, making them more likely to spread disease or become ill. So next time you’re in a park and craving some non-human company, don’t feed the birds. Instead, cuddle some kittens; everybody likes kittens.

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