A £150 fine. Plans for a cull. And volunteers checking on the birds in Central Station. What should we be doing with the pigeons in public spaces, asks Herald columnist Mark Smith

One of the stories you may have missed amid the rubble and the flames and the trains cancelled until God-knows-when is the story of the volunteers who went to Central Station after the fire to check on its less itinerant population, the ones who don’t need tickets. What they found, I’m pleased to say, is that there were no reports of injuries or deaths. The birds are okay. Glasgow’s pigeons live to peck another day.

Some of you may think this is trivial stuff compared to the destruction of the Union Street building and the millions it’s going to cost to put up something, anything, in its place, and the big question about whether Glasgow is properly looking after its built heritage (it isn’t). Some of you may also be slightly disgusted by any sort of concern for the pigeons; you may think there’s a hierarchy of animals, with your cat or dog at the top probably, and rats and mice and pigeons near the bottom. In other words, you may not care about Central Station’s pigeons one way or the other.

You would not be alone in your attitude. I’ve interviewed quite a few pigeon experts and keepers over the years and all of them have told me how public attitudes to the birds have changed, for the worse. There was a time when pigeon-keeping was one of the most popular past-times in the country, with a quarter of a million people doing it; now it would be 40,000 if you’re lucky. Certain types of people (you know who they are) have also become overly obsessed with cleanliness and tidiness and see........

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