The situation is messy
If you take the T in Boston, you already know the vibes are off at the stations. Between the infrastructure and your morning commute, there is an extra, unwanted player involved: the pigeon. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is officially tired of the bird droppings ruining station floors and posing health hazards to commuters and employees alike.
After years of dealing with complaints about riders getting hit by “aerial surprises” while trying to grab coffee or catch a train, the MBTA is looking for a more aggressive solution. They’ve recently issued a “request for information” (RFI) to see if hiring falconers to deploy birds of prey—like hawks or falcons—could finally clear the platforms. It sounds like something out of a fantasy novel, but it’s real talk.
How we got here
It’s not just you complaining to 311; the transit authority has been trying to manage the bird situation for a while. They’ve already installed netting and spikes and even tried pigeon trapping at maintenance spots, but the pigeons are resilient.
This isn't a totally wild idea, though. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) out in California started using hawks back in 2022 to handle their own pigeon problem. They found enough success with it that they even expanded the program in 2024 to cover 12 stations. The MBTA is currently reviewing responses from falconry experts to see if they should move forward with a formal pilot program. For now, they’ve made no promises, but the plot thickens for the pigeons of Boston.
Why it matters
Bird droppings aren't just gross—they’re acidic enough to actually corrode critical transit infrastructure, which is a major L for a system that already struggles with maintenance. If the MBTA decides to move forward with the pilot program, it could be the start of a serious pivot toward biological control methods in major city transit hubs.
