A pigeon's eye view of a university campus

摘要: Increasing urbanization over the last century has resulted in a greater abundance of invasive species. Invasive feral pigeons (Columba livia) damage critical urban infrastructure and pose risks to human health. Universities, including Texas Tech University (TTU), located in Lubbock, Texas, have difficulty decreasing adverse effects caused by pigeons. Assessing reliable estimates of population demographics is an important first step to understanding and managing damaging pigeon populations. Our goal was to estimate pigeon abundances at TTU and understand the underlying mechanisms that facilitated pigeon persistence on campus. We surveyed 23 independent locations from March to April 2017 to estimate pigeon abundance across the entire campus. Separately, we also examined pigeon densities on two campus buildings from March to December 2017 to assess and quantify variation in pigeon detection …