The ethics of killing things with your bare hands

Spring is here in Toronto.  I can go outside in a tshirt and bare feet, the days are getting longer, and it is time to clean all the pigeon poop off of my balcony.  Naturally this brings us to deep philosophical questions.

While we were discussing the pigeon problem I suggested that I could solve it by grabbing a pigeon, killing it with my bare hands, and putting it on a spike as a warning to the others.  This wouldn't work with wild birds of course, but city pigeons give no fucks about people and I am sure I could get close enough to grab one.

Wendy asked if I would actually be willing to kill a pigeon with my bare hands.

This is easy.  Sure I would!

Presuming I was already okay with killing a pigeon to keep them off my balcony, that is.  To me this is the real question - I don't see anything different ethically between wringing a pigeon's neck and killing it some other way like poison / traps / shooting.  If anything I think killing it up close and personal is ethically preferable because you aren't fooling yourself about what you are doing.  It is easy to imagine that you aren't violently ending a life when you kill something from a distance, but when you actually get blood on your hands you have to come to terms with what you are doing.

If I am going to kill something I would prefer to face that head on, when possible.  Do, or do not, but I am not interested in do while pretending to do not.

Most people agree that it is okay to kill animals for convenience.  We just draw the line of how *much* convenience has to be involved differently from one another.  Some would kill animals for any reason at all, while others would go to great lengths to avoid it.  Still, we all have homes that animals used to live in, and they sure don't anymore.  We consume goods that are trucked around the world, and those trucks and factories and roads kill endless critters of all types.

No matter the outcome of my musing though, I am unlikely to actually go out and murder any pigeons.  The poop isn't actually that hard to get rid of, and eventually they will find somewhere else to go, or some falcons will move in nearby and eat them all.

Now falcons, they don't fool themselves or anyone else when it comes to murder.  They kill stuff with their faces, and they apologize to nobody for it.  Gotta give them credit for that.