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DANMARKS RADIO

Danish Town Uses Drones To Target Pooping Seagulls

Aggressive gull
Aggressive gull

Even in the small Danish town of Holbæk, officials have resorted to taking out their enemies with a campaign of drone strikes. The target: a flock of seagulls (not that flock) described as aggressive and, well, messy.

After constant reports of the seagulls threatening citizens and stealing their food, the town in northern Denmark has announced their Facebook page that drones will be used to systematically map out the birds' nests and spray their eggs with paraffin oil to seal the shell and thereby "sterilize" them, Danish radio station DR reports.

"The gulls have developed into a veritable plague," says Karen Christensen, head of Holbæk's Environment Office. "The gulls are aggressive and steal food from people's tables. They also pollute. What they consume must also come out."

The initiative has sparked heated debate on the town's Facebook page. "I'm with the seagulls," says Oznur Bahar Kaya. "They have a right to be here and shit on us like we shit on their home, nature."

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Migrant Lives

What's Driving More Venezuelans To Migrate To The U.S.

With dimmed hopes of a transition from the economic crisis and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro, many Venezuelans increasingly see the United States, rather than Latin America, as the place to rebuild a life..

Photo of a family of Migrants from Venezuela crossing the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum​

Migrants from Venezuela crossed the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum.

Julio Borges

-Analysis-

Migration has too many elements to count. Beyond the matter of leaving your homeland, the process creates a gaping emptiness inside the migrant — and outside, in their lives. If forced upon someone, it can cause psychological and anthropological harm, as it involves the destruction of roots. That's in fact the case of millions of Venezuelans who have left their country without plans for the future or pleasurable intentions.

Their experience is comparable to paddling desperately in shark-infested waters. As many Mexicans will concur, it is one thing to take a plane, and another to pay a coyote to smuggle you to some place 'safe.'

Venezuela's mass emigration of recent years has evolved in time. Initially, it was the middle and upper classes and especially their youth, migrating to escape the socialist regime's socio-political and economic policies. Evidently, they sought countries with better work, study and business opportunities like the United States, Panama or Spain. The process intensified after 2017 when the regime's erosion of democratic structures and unrelenting economic vandalism were harming all Venezuelans.

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