Our Facilities Management team maintains a pest control programme to manage the damage and potential health risks caused by pest populations across campus including insects, rodents and birds.
Recently the number of feral pigeons roosting on our buildings has increased significantly. Work will focus on specialist shooting of these pigeons. This is something we’ve done regularly in the past to control the pigeon population.
What you need to know:
- Most of the work will happen on Tuesday 17 September, in the late afternoon/evening to cause minimal disruption, then there will be a follow-up in a weekend in October and also the evening of 21 October
- Licensed contractors with extensive experience (PestX), will carry out the work using pellet guns
- Our Security team will accompany the PestX team to ensure everyone on campus is safe and all will wear hi-vis so will be easily identifiable
- Signage will be in place to advise staff and students where the work is happening and what to expect
If you see the PestX team with their pellet guns around campus, please don’t be alarmed as they are professionals and are following strict safety procedures.
The removal of feral pigeons is necessary due to their potential to transmit diseases and damage air-conditioning units, buildings and monuments.
If you have any questions, please post them below.
I can see the sense of culling feral birds out that have the potential to transmit disease. It really is not appropriate in my view however, to justify their cull on the basis of the damage they do to our built environments, given that Human activity has caused huge environmental damage. Ironic and slightly insenstive in my view. Thank you.
They will just come back. You should use netting and spikes in effected areas, and also owl and falcon decoys as is done in Europe. In the long run this is also a cheaper option.
Hi Yo, our primary reason for culling is the issues around cleanliness and disease
Hi John, we use netting and spikes as well as shooting. It is our experience that no one method of control is fail safe, so we use a variety of methods.
Kill them all and let God sort it out.
Just make sure you get the ones outside 114-2009