Update on Pigeons 
(Coming soon)
Plight of our Pigeons
A new cull planned in the Left Bank (June 2010)
WACC has learnt of a planned cull to take place in the Left Bank mall area. The Left Bank Body Corporate (LBBC) have consulted the Wellington City Council(WCC) on permissions required to cull the pigeons in that area and the WCC have advised they are free to do so.
WACC has done a survey of the Left Bank and believes that exclusion devices are the only way to solve the problems they have. Certainly there are pigeons roosting in close proximity to food outlets, however, the pigeons killed in a cull will only be quickly replaced by others. The only sure way to prevent this situation is to exclude the pigeons from those sites with some accredited bird-spikes. In addition the Left Bank is renowned for its uncleanliness and the daily foraging of pigeons there will not be reduced until it is cleaned on a regular basis.
The below are pictures of the Left Bank taken in the last few days (June 2010), which illustrate how filthy some parts of it are with an array of human litter and waste, as well as the accumulation of pigeon droppings in common roosting sites where no effort has been made to prevent these activities. WACC believe that the Wellington City Council has a duty of care to take an interest in the Left Bank particularly, and in culling events city wide, and to adopt a policy of requirement for hygienic practices and non-lethal controls to prevent these kind of scenes spreading throughout our city.
>>>>You can help <<<<>>>> Our letter to the Council(PDF 562k)<<<<
History
January 2010
The pigeons around the city have vastly reduced in the last few months due to private efforts at control and pirate poisoning events that have not been prosecuted due to lack of evidence. Whilst we are against culling, beacuse it is ineffective and immoral, private efforts at control and poison baiting without expertise is also extremely cruel and causes much suffering. We believe the only solution to the perceived problems is to reduce the population naturally with non-lethal methods. These activities do not require excessive funds or time, they can be inacted quickly and simply. An international organisation that specialises in non-lethal pigeon control has offered the WCC their consultant services free of charge to assist in activating these methods, but as yet the council has not consulted them. We continue our campaign to have the council engage in non-lethal controls, for the good of the pigeons and for Wellington.
May 2009
Our greatest fears have been realised, with a letter to the editor last week, describing the slow and suffering death of a number of pigeons in the Ghuznee street region, obviously from poison. Replies can be seen here - the original letter has been removed online
We have involved the police, the council and conducted our own investigation, but as yet the culprits have not been caught. Although the council claims they had nothing to do with it, we believe it is their negligence that makes them directly responsible for this kind of action, and those in the future. By ignoring the complaints against the pigeons, and ignoring our advice and international expert advice on how to successfully control the population with non-lethal means the council have only increased the problem.
Our campaign to have the council install non-lethal methods of control will continue.
December 2008
Councilor Helene Ritchie kindly lent her voice to present our petition to council this month at the last 'Strategy and Policy' meeting for the year. Although the council has called off the cull, we wanted to have the petition to be presented and have your many disapproving signatures go on record, as we do not believe it is the last of the issue. We prepared a small blurb for Helene to read with the presentation, which she did, and we thank her for her support.
November 2008
We started a petition and formalised the opposition by giving birth to the Wellington Anti-Cull Coalition (WACC). We issued press releases to the various media sources and these were largely well received. We organised protests at Civic Square just outside the Council's headquarters and sent a swathe of emails to the Council, imploring them to do the right thing.
Finally after six weeks of activity, just on the eve of another high profile protest, the Wellington City Council announced that the "cull has been called off". We would sincerely like to thank everyone who contributed to the rise of this outcome.
October 2008
We wrote many letters. We researched alternatives to lethal measures. We contacted national and international animal welfare organisations. We wrote to newspapers and to every Wellington City Councilor. Check out some of these letters here
While our initial concern was for a cull to be performed as humanely as possible, our ongoing research revealed to us that culling was not only inhumane, but also that it did not achieve the desired goal of reducing pigeon numbers in the long term (why culling doesn't work). It is a money maker for pest control companies and has actually been banned by many overseas councils on the grounds that it actually increases the problem. We realised that it was an incorrect, irresponsible and ill thought-out plan by the Council and we proceeded to engage them in discussion on the topic. Largely they ignored us. We discovered the good work of the UK based organisation, PiCAS International who specialise in pigeon control and we lobbied the Council to contact them and take up their offer of free consultation.
September 2008
This first shock announcement came quietly in the Wellingtonian on the 24th of September 2008. A summary quietly appeared in the Dominion post the following Saturday 27th of September
Both of the above articles accurately relayed the message from a council issued press release, stating unambiguously that the council had already hired a pest control company and control by egg removal and shooting would start within two weeks from the article date.
This announcement was met with disbelief by Wellington people and many voiced their disapproval to the council and the media, particularly about the method proposed and lack of public consultation. The radio stations also covered the announcement and a council spokesman said that they "would only shoot the pigeons at night while they were asleep in their roosts". This provoked immediate concern from locals and even from people as far away as America and England. They set the ball rolling with letters to the editor and inundating the SPCA with their calls. The Wellington SPCA reacted publicly and stated the method of control by shooting the pigeons was inhumane.
December 2007
We first realised the councils desire to cull the city pigeons this month. This article, featured in the Dominion Post on December 12th 2007, purposely overflows with negative and emotive phrases from the council regarding the pigeons. It is insultingly biased and quite obviously intending to sway the reader's opinion against the pigeons. At the end of the article the council issues what amounts to a threat "if park users won't stop feeding the pigeons and bin their leftovers, the council will conduct a cull early next year". This is when a group of concerned people started to take notice. A variety of people from all walks of life commented against the idea to the newspaper and the council and a petition was launched. Nothing more was heard from the council until September 2008.
Summary
This campaign gave rise to the WACC, in 2008 when the Wellington City Council announced they were to kill the city pigeons by shooting and the contractors were about to start. There was an outcry, not just because this was the first anyone had heard of such an idea, also because shooting birds is an inhumane method of killing them, and because, as the council found out, a great many people appreciate the pigeons.
We formed the WACC and we rallied as many people as we could to support the pigeons and stop this ludicrous decision by the council. We were at first determined that the pigeons were not shot, but killed in a more humane manner, but as we researched the subject we found that culling the pigeons by any method would be unsuccessful and was a loose loose situation for all involved. We began our 'anti-culling campaign'.
In November 2008, after much back peddling, the WCC announced that they would not be culling the pigeons. This was a great victory, but the pigeons are still in danger.
