Falcons will be brought in to scare away birds pecking at the Colosseum By coincidence in Rome two years ago there were a series of similar attacks on pedestrians and tourists but none were seriously injured. Rossella Rea, director of the Anfieatro Flavio, to give the Colosseum its proper name, said she had already been in touch with several pest control firms in the Rome and added: "In previous years the problem was just pigeons and their excrement damaging the stone. Now we have a problem with seagulls, ravens and crows who peck away at the facade with their beaks and the best way to control these birds and keep them away is with falcons. The birds peck at the cracks in the facade to hide away seeds and this combined with the weeds that grow as a result loosen the stone causing it to crumble and fall away. We were able to deal with the positions by installing the classic spikes which protected tourists as they walked through the monument but now we have ravens and crows - it's like something out of a Hitchcock film. Two weeks ago we had to remove all the waste bins and replace them with ones that had special covers over the top so that the birds could not get at the rubbish inside. Umberto Broccoli, Rome council's superintendent of the city's multitude of artistic works, said: "Our monuments have two main enemies: climbing plants and birds. It's a very serious problem and the solution is not always simple as we cannot simply shoot them. Rome's daily newspaper Il Messaggero suggested another possible remedy was the use of scarecrows, even suggesting they could be "dressed as gladiators.." Pest control experts say the use of falcons or hawks is the best way of controlling problem birds. In London they were used to successfully control the multiplying problem pigeons, bringing the transient population down dramatically from 5,000 birds to 1,000. The method is seen not only as environmentally friendly but appropriate in areas from well known tourist sites to waste depots.