Pests on the pill: a new method of wildlife control

The deer population could be controlled by oral contraception. Picture: Stephen Collins/Collins 

The invention of the contraceptive pill heralded the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and now scientists are looking to revolutionise wildlife control by getting animals in on the action.

Trials are under way in the UK and elsewhere in Europe on how to get contraceptives into pigeons, wild boar and grey squirrels, with scientists also proposing other rodents, invasive parakeets and deer as other target species.