There ARE solutions!!

Attention all my fellow animal lovers:

Straight to the point. There is apparently a crisis on the farms in Pretoria where they have an infestation of pigeons, rendering 47 hectares of a 50 hectare farm useless for harvesting. It has also been said that they have tried various possible solutions which have all failed, and a solution involving sterilization will take 18 months to effect, which they are not prepared to wait for.

There’s a school in PTA, called Koster School, who have decided to hold a “Fun” competition, getting parents and the children involved in an organised mass murder of these Pigeons. A competition to see who can KILL the most birds. Competition organised for 13^th and 14^th of May 2011. What They had to say about it has been added to the bottom of this blog for those who are interested in reading THEIR point of view.

This is barbaric and I feel it teaches the kids that it is ok to shoot whatever is considered a “pest”.

So if a neighbour’s dog is barking all night and you regard it as a pest, feel free to pull our daddy’s gun and blow a hole in it’s head, cause the school says it’s fine. What morals are we teaching them at school? Why not try come up with another environmentally friendly and NON- harmful solution? What you ask? Here’s what I came up with, with a little help from some special people.

At airports, they’ve been using systems to deter flocks of birds from the airspace around to avoid them getting sucked into engines and causing engine failure, thereby causing the place to crash. Why can we not implement these sonar emitting devices near farms?

I called up a gentleman named Gerard, 083-456-2487, from Bird Control SA , who gave me some valuable information. Firstly, if the Pigeons are Rock Pigeons with red eyes, they are endangered and protected. Secondly, Pigeons are deaf to the sonar emitting devices. So this would have no effect on them. The other VERY effective alternative is a device that emits a SONIC BOOM. The cost of the devices is around R4k. They come with a solar panel and battery back-up.

Now for a 50 hectare farm, you would require between 15 and 20 of these units (around 150m coverage distance each) which would set a farmer back between R60 000 to R80 000. Would it be worth it if he was then able to harvest the remaining 47 Hectares? Absolutely! I also negotiated with Gerard who said they’d be willing to drop the price of these emitters further if we are able to get 2 or more farms to install them together at the same time.

Alternatively, and this is where the community can come in, we need to find out where the pigeons are roosting/nesting, where they go at night to sleep. We then need to remove the nests and place maybe 4 of the SONIC BOOM emitters to prevent the pigeons from returning to the nesting area. Which will in turn force them to leave the area and find an alternative food source, WITHOUT KILLING A SINGLE BIRD! So perhaps we need to raise funds for the 4 emitters, R16 000. How can we go about this?

Perhaps the school concerned can have fair of sorts. Selling cupcakes and pancakes, holding a fun run or soap box derby. Perhaps a better idea to teach kids responsibility in looking after nature and finding better solutions to problems, rather than shooting them…. But hey, that’s just my opinion.

Hoping we can stop this senseless murders and come to an agreement

Best Regards

Cliff aka @PigSpotter

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This is what they published and had to say:

Afrikaans to English translation (mostly google translation - please read this only as a guide as translation from Afrikaans to English is not so easy!)



20 April 2011
Dear correspondent

Thanks for your opinion about the pigeon shooting competition. Each person is entitled to an opinion - informed or not.

After my conversation with Mr. Andrew Venter of the National Council for Animal Protection, the following points came to the fore:

• The NSPCA is still against this initiative.
• Understanding of the current situation.
• In conjunction with the South African Agricultural seeds and seed protection department will be communicated on alternative methods of combating pest-control animals - specifically birds - what is practical and can be effective.

The following information about the shooting without trying to change your opinion: 

• Koster is located in the seed producers upland area with few trees and protection.
• Every year at harvest time there is a high population of pigeons in particular and other pest birds such as finches and guinea fowl.
• From a 50 hectare [seed name] harvest, only about 3 hectares can economically be harvested.
• Sunflowers lose a third of the seeds (pips) before harvesting.
• Farmers who put the food on your stores shelves at at their wits end.
• Please Google" agriculture and pest control" for those claiming that birds are not a terrible plague for the agricultural industry.
• Refer also to an article in Beeld - 20 April 2011 about predators
• The Bible also speaks of pests like small foxes and grasshoppers. (WHY IS RELIGION ALWAYS BROUGHT INTO IT???? PigSpotter comment)
• Unlike kwela-finches which are controlled with poison or fire fighting and insects with poison pest control, we try to be more specific in target selection.

Farmers have approached the school for help and the project was decided because:

• Alternative methods such as introducing owls and hawks to the area have already been tried, but failed. This is not good habitat for them and hawks are just being driven into neighboring land. Owls are nocturnal - they focus on the mice and insects and not pigeons.
• Farmers have already used pesticides sprayed from aircraft, but then all the birds die, including insects and crawling organisms as well as some scavengers.
• Other farmers put burning trees [? not sure] under trees to control finch pests - put it out in the evening when birds sleep.
• Target-oriented pigeon shooting ON THE LAND of the farmers as an option has been identified.
• Thus, we try to put food on the shelf for you as a consumer.
• We use people from the local village to collect the dead and wounded birds. At the end of the day we offload the birds into the community where they have "fist-fights" to secure it as a food source.

To elimenate misperceptions:

• Only licensed weapons during the shooting may be used. Conservation [society] issue bird hunting permits on Friday May 13, 2011 and Saturday morning May 14, 2011. It will only be issued if the licence holder shows proof of his/her license and ID document. According to legislation no gun may be borrowed to another person.
• No [school] pupil is involved the day when the pigeon shooting takes place - they are unlicensed. However, they are aware of the competion. As children of local farmers they themselves shoot the pest birds on their own land to save crops.
• No shooting takes place in the field [bushveld]. Even less so on the school grounds as many falsely believe that pigeons are transported [taken to] to be shot . Only land where the crops at the time is ripe has been identified as shooting areas.

Pest Control now serve as a source of food on the shelves of shops and in the community where pigeons are being shot.

Until discussions of alternative control measures such as sterilization - which takes a long time before the population is thinned out [population control] - is successfully planned, we are bound by an cry-out from farmers in our area to find a solution like shooting of pest animals.

We invite you to visit us the week prior to the event to observe the scope of the pigeon plague . You are also welcome to attend said well-organized day with us and then you can re-evaluate your opinion.

 On behalf DUIFUITDUNKOMITEE [pigeon population control committee]

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A number of people have sent mails to the school requesting them to cancel this cruel event, however they are going ahead with their plans, which entail killing wild birds for fundraising and for "fun". Please send emails to: paula@kosterskool.co.za


Contact numbers in the advertisement: Dawie Naude +27 14 543 2013 , +27 83 994 0814
and Paula Klaasen mobile number +27 84 707 6989.