Goulburn's populous pigeons think the city is a great place.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
There's plenty of old buildings to hang out on and lots of feed and seed on hand in Belmore Park.
But the abundance of the pesky birds is creating headaches for city shopkeepers and the council.
Pigeon poop is clogging up the city.
"Everyone is walking around saying pigeons, bloody pigeons," declared Cr Peter Walker at Tuesday's Goulburn Mulwaree Council meeting.
"The brand new building at Seiffert Oval now has about 200 pigeons sitting on it."
The problem is, the council does not have a budget to get rid of the birds, and even if it did, there does not seem to be a clear answer on how to deal with them.
Despite this, a Draft Pigeon and Pest Bird Policy, was adopted by the council at the meeting. This details possible pigeon control methods, including:
- Ensuring rubbish bins in the CBD parks have lids to prevent pest birds from foraging on scraps
- Using locally occurring native vegetation for new street plantings
- Installing "exclusion devices" such as netting, bird spikes and gutter guards on buildings
- Destroying nests during peak breeding times (July to February)
- Trapping the birds
- Installing signage reminding residents not to feed them
- Shooting them, using professional shooters.
"After discussion with a number of other regional cities in NSW it is clearly evident that the only action available to reduce the number of pigeons in the city would be to shoot or trap the birds," a report to the meeting stated.
What do you think?
"If the birds were trapped then a euthanasia program would have to be implemented. Discussions with other councils have indicated that the cost of either of these programs is expensive and the council has not included any funds in the next four year's budgets for such a program.
"The other options available to eradicate or reduce the number of pigeons requires all building owners to participate.
"The council owns a small number of buildings in the CBD and if we install exclusion devices it would only relocate the birds to another building. If the whole of the CBD installed such devices then the birds would relocate to other parts of the city or residential buildings."
The draft policy is on public exhibition at the council for 28 days.
Meanwhile, other councils have tried various approaches to reduce them.
Bathurst Regional Council has shot 2500 pigeons in the Bathurst CBD over the past six years.
A further 1124 have been trapped or killed through other strategies.
That council has reported that contract shooting is the most effective control strategy.
Another method that has been discussed by that council is the deployment of solar-powered electric tape on buildings that gives the birds a small shock when they land on it.
On problem reported with this method is that it affects all birds.
Some other options considered by that council include trialling birth control feeders and distress callers that emit an alarm to disperse large congregations of the birds.
We care about what you think. Have your say in the form below and if you love local news don't forget to subscribe
David Cole
Journalist at the Goulburn Post
Journalist at the Goulburn Post
