AMERICAN FALLS – City residents were shocked last weekend to see pigeons stumbling onto the road, unable to fly and then falling to their deaths.

City of American Falls workers have collected about 40 dead pigeons since Friday, Oct. 25, and Idaho Department of Fish and Game officials have collected some of the birds for testing. This occurred after a private restoration company allegedly trapped the birds in a dilapidated building at 575 Fort Hall Boulevard, where the flocks had lived for years.

“This is absolutely terrible,” said Amy Larsen, owner of Magnolia’s Salon next door to the building. “I think it’s terrible that these birds are dying. “It’s sad to watch.”

Larsen said the building, which he calls the Trade Center, has been occupied by nothing but pigeons for the past three years since he has been operating his salon. Sometime after the building was abandoned, the roof collapsed, allowing pigeons to get inside.

The city estimates there are between 200 and 300 birds in the building, according to American Falls Mayor Rebekah Sorenson.

Larsen first learned something new was happening Friday afternoon when he walked out of his gym after a few hours of work.

“There were dead pigeons everywhere,” Larsen said. “On the sidewalks, in the alley across from my building. “They were everywhere.”

While Larsen estimated that there were around 15 to 20 dead pigeons in the immediate area, “The entire building was covered with live pigeons, and if you made any noise in the alley, they would all start flying away.”

Sorenson said the city police department received a call about three or four weeks ago complaining about the pigeons. A staff member visited the property and notified the property manager of the problem.

“Someone had come in and blocked off the building and was aware that the pigeons were living there, but he didn’t show them outside or anything, he just shut them down and left them there to die with no food or water,” Sorenson said.

Looking down the alley Friday afternoon, Larsen saw the side door in the alley between two buildings was open. Sorenson confirmed that a city employee did this.

“When someone heard that the birds were slowly dying from hunger and thirst, it broke their hearts, and someone went and opened the door to give the dying birds a chance,” Sorenson said. “That’s when they started to show up and a lot of the weak ones got crushed on the road and got mixed up in the traffic because they couldn’t fly. Others were trying to find something to eat or had gone too far and died.”

Larsen found that when people got within a meter of pigeons on the ground, they did not move.

“They don’t fly away; They’re not trying to escape. Even when you honk the horn, they don’t move because they don’t know what’s going on,” Larsen said.

While approximately 40 dead birds were collected in the city, this does not include the birds collected by citizens.

On Friday, Idaho Fish and Game collected some of the birds and tested them for a wide variety of potential diseases.

Department spokeswoman Jennifer Jackson expects to receive the results of those tests this week. Pigeons more commonly carry a range of diseases, and given the conditions the birds live in, there are a range of diseases they could potentially carry.

“My guess is they’ll start looking at the condition of the birds when they get them, and they’ll also take into account some of the behavior of the birds at the time they were discovered, and maybe that can help them narrow down the types of tests and what to do. “I’m looking,” Jackson said.

Fish and Game officers responding to the scene Friday afternoon “discovered approximately 200 birds that were either dead or having difficulty walking and flying,” Jackson said.

The number of birds found dead and still flying around the area has Larsen and his customers concerned for their health. Even though most of the dead birds had been cleared from the roads by Monday, he still had customers calling him and canceling their appointments out of concern.

Birds circling in the sky also made people walking in the area uneasy. One of Larsen’s clients ran to her car with her sweater over her head, and her daughter witnessed a bird trying to fly out the window of another car.

As of Monday afternoon, the building’s door had been closed and the birds had been removed. According to Sorenson, a new restoration company is working on the property.

EastIdahoNews.com was unable to obtain the name of the restoration company managing the building.

Various rumors were shared about the cause of the pigeons’ death over the weekend.

“Everything on Facebook all weekend was nothing but speculation. Some say it’s bird flu, some say it’s suspicious. I mean, the maximum blows out of proportion,” Larsen said.

Sorenson wouldn’t be surprised if Fish and Game learned that the pigeons were carrying some kind of disease, considering they live in close quarters.

“But this is not a nationwide event. This is not an epidemic. This is a very isolated scenario due to poor decision making (which could have all very easily been prevented),” Sorenson said.