BATHURST'S ongoing battle with feral pigeons in the city increasingly looks like the unwinnable war.
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No matter what we try - and we've tried plenty over the years - it seems nothing really works.
Over the years, Bathurst Regional Council has tried shooting the birds, but there always seem to be plenty more pigeons ready to take their place.
Council has tried a trapping program, but that was even less successful than shooting them.
We've thought about blasting them out with sound but no-one could up up with a plan that would not also disrupt the humans living around the CBD, while council's own fact sheet on feral pigeons includes suggestions such dabbing vegetable and mineral oils on eggs laid in nest to prevent hatching.
There has been talk of using hawks to scare away the pigeons and even poisoning programs, yet every time the pigeons seem to survive.
And all the while they go on trashing some of Bathurst's most significant buildings, a crying shame in a city that prides itself on its unique position as the nation's oldest inland settlement.
Key council facilities such as the Australian Fossil and Mineral Museum, the old TAFE building and the Russell Street civic centre have all had to endure the damage pigeons can wreak, and still no permanent solution has been found.
And so, inevitably, the question of how best to manage that the pigeon population has come up again in council but there is nothing to give us real hope that the outcome might be different this time round.
Councillors have been advised that a licensed professional shooter has been engaged on occasion to use a special air rifle and ammunition to cull the pigeons in a method that's been described as "accurate and humane", through apparently not effective.
And so the fight goes on, costing us more money and time than would seem possible.
The only comfort for council might be the thought that at least they have the whole community onside in this war.
When flying foxes descended on Machattie Park last year, there were plenty of people willing to defend them as native animals who had as much right as anyone to be there. Not so with feral pigeons.
They have no friends, no redeeming qualities and no right to be here. If only they weren't so bloody hard to eradicate.