(Radio Iowa) – After several months of discussions, the Storm Lake City Council has narrowly passed a homing pigeon ordinance. Up to one hundred domestic pigeons will be allowed on a single property within Storm Lake city limits. City officials began debating the topic after complaints about the number of birds in the city. A Storm Lake resident said their family raised homing pigeons as a hobby — for races. Storm Lake City Councilman Kevin McKinney opposes letting up to 100 pigeons occupy a single property — and he questions how the ordinance can be enforced. “It’s going to be a little tough to go in there and count pigeons and stuff like that,” he says.

Storm Lake’s city manager says they’re planning to set up a licensing process. It will require that pigeons be wearing leg bands showing their owner’s name. Scott Olsen is a building official for the City of Storm Lake. “When we get the application for them to be legally able to have those in city limits and we get a complaint that there’s too many, there’s more than 100 or any other issues, it’d be like any other nuisance,” he says. “We’d have to go in and investigate.”

Storm Lake Racing Pigeon Club (Facebook photo)

In the sport of pigeon racing, trained homing pigeons are taken to a racing spot, released and timed for how long it takes the birds to fly home. Under state law, it is illegal to kill, capture or detain a homing pigeon that has the name of its owner on the band around its leg.