In the Katoomba CBD pigeons are roosting in air-conditioners and cool room compressors, pooing everywhere and hanging around shops, much to the distaste of some businesses.
At the Blue Mountains Food Co-Op in Hapenny Lane the pigeons can be seen outside the store and they're a frequent sight being fed on Katoomba Street.
Co-op manager Halin Nieuwenhuyse said she had found pigeon eggs outside the store under the stairs and in the compressors used to keep the cool rooms chilled.
“They are shitting everywhere, down the laneway and over the path and the back steps,” she said.
In a bid to stop the pigeons from settling, spikes were installed recently on some surfaces in Hapenny Lane.
Another Hapenny Lane business owner, Robyn Robinson from Pure Serenity Beauty Therapy, said the pigeons had been nesting in the salon’s air-conditioning unit, causing it to blow up.
She thought it was the people feeding the pigeons that caused so many to hang around the Katoomba CBD.
Ms Nieuwenhuyse said council signage educating people not to feed the pigeons would be helpful.
Jane Lemire, the manager of Clean Slate Cafe on the corner of Katoomba Street and Hapenny Lane, agreed, adding that it was often visitors who fed the pigeons.
A Blue Mountains City Council spokeswoman said: “The installation of signs to discourage the feeding of pigeons is also generally accepted as an approach that is not practical or effective.
“As the pigeons are wild, with no owners, council can only regulate activities such as the repair of buildings to prevent pigeon entry (and therefore nesting).”
Other business owners considered the amount of pigeon poo being produced near their shops a considerable problem, requiring daily cleaning.
Scores of pigeons can often be seen perched on the roof of the nearby Woolworths, which led Ms Nieuwenhuyse to question if spikes could be put on the roof to encourage them to roost elsewhere.
“Kmart and Coles [which were in that location before Woolworths] had something on the roof deterring them from roosting,” she said.
A Woolworths spokesman said they were “certainly aware of the issue and had raised it with the property owner.” The owner did not respond to the Gazette’s query before publication.
The council spokeswoman said a pigeon trapping project was conducted in 2008 and 2009, but it had limited success.
As the pigeons are wild, with no owners, council can only regulate activities such as the repair of buildings to prevent pigeon entry (and therefore nesting)
- BMCC spokeswoman
