Exercise II
Robot Birds
Liverpool city council want to clear the city of fat pigeons. They say that that people are feeding the birds, which makes them fat. The pigeons get bigger because their normal diet would consist of seeds and insects, not high-fat junk food they are eating in the city centre.
The council want people to know that everyone who feeds the pigeons is responsible for the streets being so crowded with these birds. They hope to encourage the birds to move away from the city centre and into parks and open spaces.
Ten robotic birds have been brought into the city centre to scare the pigeons away and visitors are asked not to give the pigeons any food. The mechanical birds - known as 'robops' - will sit on the roofs of buildings. They can be moved around to different locations. They look like a peregrine falcon, which is a bird that kills pigeons. They even make noises and flap their wings to scare the pigeons. They hope that the pigeons will go away before the city becomes the European Capital of Culture in two years.
