NEW YORK - America's modern military is turning a high-tech tool on a new target - the pigeons of Times Square - but at least for now, it is holding fire.

Lights illuminate 42nd Street at Times Square in New York in this photo taken April 2, 2004. America's modern military is turning a high-tech tool on a new target - the pigeons of Times Square - but at least for now, it is holding fire. [Reuters]

Plagued by dirt and noise, a recruitment center shared by several branches of the US armed forces has installed a sound system in New York's neon-bedecked "Crossroads of the World" intended to scare off the winged marauders by playing the sounds of predatory birds.

The $1,000 system was installed a week ago and makes noise every few minutes at random intervals.

"It's a non-harmful way to keep pigeons off the building," said Tech. Sgt. Danny Ulch, a recruiter for the United States Air Force.

It's too soon to tell how well the new system will work. Pigeons have been a problem in Times Square for generations.

"The light poles are ideal for pigeons to roost and you get droppings. We place a thin piano wire an inch above the main pole and that prevents them from sitting," said Robert Esposito, vice president of operations at the Times Square Alliance business group, who bred pigeons while growing up in Brooklyn.

That's not as high tech as the US military's solution but better than the plastic owl the alliance tried before.

"By the third day I swear the pigeons wanted to mate with it," Esposito said.

There is no single answer, Esposito said, although he ruled out the deadly solution adopted in London's Trafalgar Square, where authorities brought in birds of prey to kill the offending birds.

The predators have cut the pigeon population but at a cost to taxpayers of nearly half a million dollars.