Ukrainian City to Get Pigeons Drunk, Deport Them 

A city in northeastern Ukraine is considering a plan to take on the local pigeons by getting them drunk on wine and deporting them, a local news website reported. The radical measure was proposed to prevent a monument to poet Taras Shevchenko in Sumy from being covered in bird droppings ahead of City Day, Obkom.com.ua said on Monday. “Let’s give them wine-soaked bread and then deport them somewhere where they’ll wake up the next day,” Alexei Movchan, who heads the city branch of the ruling Party of Regions, was cited as saying about the pigeons. He dismissed allegations of animal cruelty by saying that deportation of inebriated birds is practiced in the Holy Dormition Pochayiv Lavra, an Orthodox Christian monastery in the country’s west, the report said. It remained immediately unclear whether the city adopted the plan. Sumy celebrates City Day on September 2.