(Coming soon)Contact the WACC
You can contact us either by E-mail or Post:
wlgacc@gmail.com
P. O. Box 27207 Marion Square, Wellington, New Zealand 6014
How the WACC began
The WACC was formed in October 2008 in conjunction with the STTSP, in response to the Wellington City Councils announcement that they intended to cull our city pigeons. Particularly our initial concern was because the Council announced there would be shooting, most likely at night, while the pigeons were in their roosts.
This alarmed many Wellingtonians. A variety of people wrote to the council and to the newspapers to express their concerns. It was in these communications and forums that alliances of opinion were formed and many of us started to communicate with each other to further explore these concerns and the lack of response from the Council.
From this beginning and from the results of extensive research into the subject of lethal control (culling) of pigeons and the non-lethal options that are being practiced overseas; as a group, we galvanised our anti-cull stance. During our research we discovered many overseas organisations that held the same views, the STTSP -Save the Trafalgar Square Pigeons - were particularly supportive and their director Niel Hansen lent us his expertise and ongoing support on the subject.
Niel Hansen, Director of STTSP's said, in support of WACC:
We discovered many examples of overseas Councils with much larger pigeon populations than Wellington has, who admit that culling is ineffective. These Councils have adapted long term non-lethal control methods that have been successful in reducing their pigeon populations between 50-70%. We knew then, that we could not allow our Council to go ahead with their plans.
We mounted a joint and concerted campaign against the cull to the Council and to the media. Within a week the Council amended their previously announced decision. They now said they had not made a decision and were 'considering all of their options'. We continued our campaign with letters to the Media and to Councilors; we conducted street protests and started a petition. We gained the support of PETA International, who sent a letter to the deputy Mayor and to the media.
By the end of October 2008, the Council announced that they had 'called off the cull' and citing budgetary constraints, said they would not be conducting any control on the pigeons at all.
This was a good result for us, we believe we had significant effect on this decision and that 'budgetary constraints' was an easy way for the Council to save face and dismiss the issue. The WACC does not think this is the end of the issue, but we pledge to be vigilant and to challenge any New Zealand Council who suggests this type of control again.
Updates
