Moscow, Jul 24 (IANS/RIA Novosti): A Ukranian city is contemplating a plan to get the local pigeons drunk and then deport them so that a popular poet's statue could be protected from their droppings, according to a news website.

The radical measure has been proposed to prevent a monument of poet Taras Shevchenko in Sumy city from being covered in bird droppings ahead of the City Day, reported Obkom.com.ua.

"Let's give them wine-soaked bread and then deport them somewhere where they'll wake up the next day," Alexei Movchan, who heads the city branch of the ruling Party of Regions, was cited as saying about the pigeons.

He dismissed allegations of animal cruelty by saying that deportation of inebriated birds is practiced in the Holy Dormition Pochayiv Lavra, an Orthodox Christian monastery in the country's west.

It remained immediately unclear whether the city finally adopted the plan or not. Sumy celebrates City Day Sep 2.