Pigeons can pose a significant threat to food safety when they make themselves at home near food-processing facilities.
These birds often carry pests and diseases, their nests attract vermin and when people step into their droppings, the nastiness can end up inside the plant. Also, says Lily Coetzee, national SHERQ manager and acting general manager of Country Bird Holdings’further-processing plant in Germiston, Gauteng, bird droppings on a roof can leak into the building through tiny cracks when it rains. The bottom line is that pigeons must be controlled.
“In my free time I’m involved with wildlife rescue, so I didn’t want to shoot the pigeons that were making a pest of themselves here at our Poultry Palace,” says Coetzee. So she did some research and stumbled upon Avian Pest
Services, a business that uses hawks as pest-control agents.
This explains why, two days a week, falconer Ernest Blignaut and his female Harris Hawk can be found at the CBH plant. She catches one, maybe two,
pigeons per visit but poses enough of a threat that already more than half of the pigeons that used to nest on the site
have moved away to safer spots.
The patrolling sessions are sche-duled at different times every week to make sure the pigeons don’t adapt to a pattern and just clear off when they know the hawk is due. “She is quite intimidating and doesn’t believe in making friends,” says Coetzee. “She’ll come for food and perch on your hand but don’t even think about touching her or scratching her head.” In fact, the hawk is so unattached to her handler, that she is fitted with a tracking device in case she decides to take to the skies.
The Harris Hawk is native to South America and is used for pest control locally as South African birds of prey may not be “employed” as working birds. Weighing in at about 800g, the CBH “contractor” is proof that size doesn’t count nearly as much as attitude and reputation.
“I would recommend this approach to any food facility that struggles with
pesky pigeons,” says Coetzee. “A well-trained and managed hawk is the best, easiest and most natural way to control them.”
