SOUTH JORDAN — Despite years of clashing with city officials and the mandated destruction of a backyard loft that held hundreds of pigeons, South Jordan's "pigeon man" has once again been found to be harboring birds on his property.
"We went to that address in terms of a welfare check because his neighbors said that his papers and mail had been stacking up and they were worried about him," said South Jordan Police Lt. Rob Hansen.
Inside the home of Boris Majnaric, a 78-year-old retired schoolteacher, three police officers found around 100 pigeons in cages on the first floor. Upstairs, they found another 10 or so, Hansen said. Majnaric, however, was not there during Friday's search.
"We found that he has been in the hospital for some period of time," Hansen said. "We don't know why. They wouldn't give us any of that information."
Majnaric declined to comment Monday about the birds in his home, but said he was released from the hospital that day. In 2015, during his last battle to keep his pigeons, he was hospitalized for pulmonary problems.
Despite the city allowing pigeon fanciers to own only 40 adult birds, Hansen said no criminal charges have been filed against Majnaric as of Monday.
For now, the issue has been handed over to animal control and health officials to decide what to do next, according to Hansen.
"We're going to have the board of health check on his living conditions again, just to make sure that they don't need to get involved," Hansen said. "But that's where we're leaving it."
Until the board's decision is made, animal control will not take any action involving the pigeons, Hansen said. A spokeswoman for the Salt Lake County Health Department said it is unlikely health officials would mandate the removal of the pigeons unless they pose a health risk for anyone outside the home.
"From our perspective, there's nothing criminal, we don't see it as a hazmat issue," Hansen said.
A police officer was hospitalized after searching Majnaric's home Friday, however, due to an allergy the officer had not known about before. Hansen said the officer was checked out of the hospital shortly after and is in good health — despite an allergy to all birds that he is now aware of.
Majnaric has been battling the city of South Jordan for years. Most notably, in 2015 a 3rd District judge ordered the destruction of a spacious backyard loft Majnaric had been housing pigeons in.
Four years before that, neighbors had noticed an explosion of pigeons in the area and complained to the city — igniting litigation in justice, district and federal court.
"I will feel very incomplete because pigeons have been part of my life," Majnaric told the Deseret News in 2015, adding he was living a childhood dream to raise and care for "man's oldest feathered friends."
"It's going to be an empty thing for me," Majnaric said at the time. "I don't think it's fair what they've done to me."
More than 200 pigeons of various colors and varieties lived in the 384-square-foot, four-room loft in Majnaric's backyard. Dozens more "homeless" birds roosted in a gazebo.
After trials and appeals in justice and district court — including one in which a jury found the pigeons were not a nuisance but that Majnaric violated city conditional use laws — and unsuccessful attempts to settle the issue, the city moved to take down the structures in 2015.
Majnaric filed a federal lawsuit of his own in 2014 but did not pursue it.
Contributing: Dennis Romboy