I WRITE in reply to your front page article relating to pigeons ("Councillors declare new war on Bathurst's pigeon population", April 16).
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In your article, Cr Jess Jennings refers to council evaluating shock tape. This tape has already been installed on one of the council sites, so evaluation should be an easy task.
He is correct in the fact that it will discourage birds from landing on that site; however the birds just move to a new site.
This is also the case for using spikes, daddy long legs, laser light deterrents and light reflectors.
While this may push the birds to other areas, hopefully they will be in areas where trapping or shooting are more successful.
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Culling is the only way to lower the population. This culling should be a combination of shooting and trapping.
While shooting can be effective, it can only be done during hours when there are few, if any, people in the area and therefore missing any of the pigeons that are roosting in other areas during the evening but migrate to the CBD by day.
Trapping is a way to entice the pigeons into the traps during both night and daytime hours.
Our company carried out the trapping program in 2013. Your article says this wasn't very effective.
During that program a total of 904 pigeons were removed from the CBD in a six-week period. Since then we have trapped over 2000 more pigeons from public and private premises, sometimes hundreds from just one site.
These pigeons are then recycled as a food source for the Secret Creek Nature Reserve in Lithgow, for their breeding programs for endangered quolls and for Tasmanian Devils, therefore assisting endangered fauna while reducing pigeon numbers.
Pigeons will always be a problem, however a co-ordinated approach is required to attain the best results.
