Cities exist in a delicate balance.

Subways come along once every 3-5 minutes. People file in, people file out. Ebb. Flow.

Sometimes the equilibrium is perturbed. Like after a big concert at the Dome. Then people crowd onto the subway platform. People file in. People file in. People file in.

But such disturbances in the yin yang of traffic last for but a short time and then return to normal.

Such is not the case, however, with the city’s burgeoning pigeon problem caused by the chickadee-brained romantics who park themselves in public high-traffic places, armed with bags of moldy bread crumbs that they toss at their feet, causing frenetic, parasite-infested pigeons to swarm.

Pigeons are scavengers. Scavengers play an important part in this delicate equilibrium:

Eat a hot dog. Drop a crumb. Pigeon eats it. Pigeon flies away. Eat a sandwich. Drop the crust. Pigeon eats it. Pigeon flies away. Ebb. Flow.

See? It all works very nicely. Our streets stay clean of crumbs. Pigeons get enough food to provide them with enough energy to survive, maybe court another pigeon, and perhaps even make a baby pigeon. We all win.

But then along come these lonely, Mary Poppins watching, crumb hoarders. They get some sick pleasure by being surrounded by armies of diseased birds.

Look, I don’t mean to be callous. We all need love. We all need to feel like we matter. But if you want to feel like you are making a difference go read to children at the library, go hold an elderly man’s hand at the geriatric centre, go to the zoo and give a therapeutic massage to a lama if ‘giving back’ to the animal kingdom is what turns your crank.

But when these pigeons get fed, they become fat, lazy, and make lots of fat, lazy babies. As long as they keep being fed by these “angels” of bread, bird populations go up and up. Pretty soon, our sidewalks are covered in a whitish brown carpet of poo and we can’t walk through the courtyard to our office without a prudent head covering.

And furthermore: Now you eat a hot dog, drop a crumb, but no bird is there to swoop down and clean our street. The pigeons have become greedy. Why would they expend energy and fly over to that single crumb when they can loiter in our cherished public spaces and wait for a feast to be thrown at their ugly, bacteria-soaked, feet?

It is time for everyone to wake up and tap into the city zen. Stop feeding the pigeons and seek professional help.