By Nathan Frandino (Reuters) – Metro system riders in California’s San Francisco Bay Area may have noticed a new station guard in recent months. A 5-year-old Harris’s hawk named Pac-Man has taken up the perch at El Cerrito del Norte station, where he’s on the look out – not for fare evaders, but pigeons. Ricky Ortiz, a falconer with Falcon Force and Pac-Man’s handler, began patrolling with the bird at the station this summer, contracting with the Bay Area Rapid Transit system, or BART, to keep the pigeons at bay and protect commuters from pigeon poop.
San Francisco metro system hires bird of prey to scare pigeons away
