IIn the dispute over the planned killing of urban pigeons by breaking their necks, the voters of Limburg will have to decide. After a successful citizens' initiative against the killing of pigeons, the city council voted unanimously in a special session on Monday evening to hold a referendum on the issue. The vote is scheduled for June 9, when voters have already been invited to the European Parliament elections and the district administrator vote for the Limburg-Weilburg district, according to the municipality.

Those entitled to vote therefore have two options: they can either follow the content of the citizens' initiative or support the decision made by the city council in November. At the time, most local politicians supported the controversial method, despite protests from animal rights activists. According to this, an expert person, namely a falconer, should first lure hundreds of city pigeons to a so-called capture shot, then stun them with a blow to the head and finally kill them by breaking their necks. Berthold Geis, a falconer and hunter living in the Limburg-Weilburg district, had previously been advised by the city council.

Animal rights activists protested

In 2011, Geis fought before the Hessen administrative court for the right to take the lives of large numbers of urban pigeons, considered pests, in the manner described. Setting up pigeon houses like the one in Hanau, where birds can breed under human supervision and eggs are exchanged for plaster dummies, is not effective, according to Geis. The Limburg Urban Pigeon Project is nevertheless campaigning for contraception in supervised pigeon lofts. Geis is also against Wiesbaden's idea to have the pigeons sterilized by veterinarians and thus limit the unwanted spread of urban pigeons.

Before the referendum, the Federal Association for Animal Rights and the Erna Graff Foundation for Animal Protection called on local politicians to withdraw their decision starting in November. Like the animal rights organization Peta, they consider the method used by Geis to be illegal. According to them, they have ordered an examination of an unnamed professor of public law, the results of which are still pending. The city has a different opinion: in the opinion of the city government, the November decision is legal with its review and coordination with the district's municipal supervisory authority.

The city refers to the Kassel judgment, which Geis fought for at the time. However, he also emphasizes that if voters support the city council's decision in November, he will review the legal basis in each case before hiring a falconer.

The initiative “Stop killing pigeons” had collected 3,310 signatures from the voters of Limburg – enough for 2,672. In the referendum, 25 percent of eligible voters must vote in favor of the initiative to cancel the decision to kill the pigeons.