Summonses Issued to Persons who Feed Pigeons

11 Mr Lim Biow Chuan asked the Minister for National Development (a) in the past three years, how many summons have been issued to offenders who feed pigeons; and (b) what other measures can the Ministry introduce to deter the feeding of pigeons.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for National Development (Ms Sun Xueling) (for the Minister for National Development): Over the past three years, 682 enforcement notices were issued for pigeon feeding offences. NParks takes measures to deter the feeding of pigeons, including installing cameras and conducting surveillance at identified feeding hotspots. NParks also works with Town Councils to put up notices to ask for information about feeding activities, so as to carry out enforcement operations in a more targeted manner.

Public education is also an important strategy. NParks, NEA and the Town Councils work together to educate residents about the environmental health and hygiene issues caused by pigeon feeding. This is done through advisories, posters and outreach events. Agencies are also working with the Municipal Services Office to develop targeted public education messages and materials. The community and grassroots leaders can also help to spread the message.

To reduce the availability of food sources for pigeons, NEA ensures good food waste management in food centres and coffee shops in HDB estates and enforces against littering. Residents can and should also play their part by helping to maintain the overall cleanliness of their estates.

Mr Lim Biow Chuan (Mountbatten): I have had many complaints about pigeons at hawker centres, at window ledges, at everywhere. And the bird droppings, I understand, are considered to be infectious. So, I am asking the Senior Parliamentary Secretary, can NParks do more to step up enforcement. Following what hon Member Mr Louis Ng said, can there be more manpower given to NParks to enforce more, step more patrols, do more advisories, because when the Town Council talks to the residents, many at time, they are ignored? So, there should be greater enforcement to send the signal that feeding of pigeons is not something that is legal. Would Senior Parliamentary Secretary also consider increasing the penalties for pigeon feeding? I think the message has not gotten to many of these pigeon feeders that whatever they are doing is causing health risks to many other people?

Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member for his two points. Firstly, I would encourage perhaps the Member to share with us where the hotspots are because I think that would be very helpful in allowing us to concentrate our manpower or the use of cameras and targeted patrols. Because if we know when the pigeon feeder normally comes out, it is easier for us to catch the pigeon feeder in action. So, I think information such as this from residents, from grassroots leaders and from the community will be very helpful in allowing us to be more effective in the way we conduct our enforcement.

On the second point about increasing penalties, currently, pigeon feeders can be fined up to $500 per offence. So, I think we can put more of this information out. And I would also like to share with him that there was this high-rise littering/pigeon feeding pilot in Yio Chu Kang that was actually spearheaded by one of my colleagues. On the enforcement front, not only do they deploy cameras to basically enforce and find out who the pigeon feeders are, they also put up captured images of the offenders. So, I think it is helpful in creating community awareness. And they also work with the local Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) to engage vulnerable and/or recalcitrant offenders. Because while we have our fines, and we enforce when we catch – as I mentioned, they can be fined up to $500 per offence – we also find that sometimes, some of these offenders may have some other issues that they are dealing with. And if we are able to work with the community, we can also reach out to the families and friends of these offenders and see how we can deter such behaviour from them.

Ms Foo Mee Har (West Coast): Similarly, in my constituency, we have a lot of pigeon issues. So, I listened with great interest in the pilot that the Senior Parliamentary Secretary spoke about. All the things that Senior Parliamentary Secretary spoke about, we have attempted. And I would say, over the last eight or nine years, I do not see much results. We have done everything that she has suggested. I think the pilot that she just mentioned, I listened with great interest and I would like to ask the Senior Parliamentary Secretary when can this be rolled out to the other parts of Singapore.

Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member for the point she raised. The pilot consists of three parts. I had mentioned enforcement earlier. It also includes community solutioning which includes putting up educational materials which I am sure the Member has attempted. But also, I guess it is really about house-to-house visits for affected blocks. But I would say that the initial results from this high-rise littering/pigeon feeding pilot in Yio Chu Kang has been quite promising. We would look into it further and see how we can roll it out to different locations. As we understand it, pigeon feeding issues are quite local-based. It depends on the local infrastructure, the demographics of the residents who live in a certain area, certain habits, and the interaction between food centres in the local community.

So, while we currently seem to have a pilot that has seemed to have worked quite well in Yio Chu Kang, I think we will probably have to distill it further and work closely with the local Members of Parliament and grassroots advisors to see how we can adapt it for use in the local community.

Mr Louis Ng Kok Kwang (Nee Soon): I just want to go back to the point of whether MND can increase the manpower for the surveillance team because I think that is the crunch at this point, the bottleneck where we do not have enough officers to do the surveillance to tackle the feeding.

My second point is: a lot of us have focused on culling and culling is actually not the solution. That is is problem: the more you cull, the more pigeons you have. So, I am really hopeful that this pilot that the Senior Parliamentary Secretary has mentioned, we can roll out nationwide so that we can now effectively tackle this problem.

Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member for his repeated mentions about manpower and also earlier, Member Mr Lim Biow Chuan's point. I will take that back to my Ministry and I will also talk to NParks about it. We will see where possible, how we can work towards achieving the outcome that we want, whether or not it is increasing more manpower or better use of the existing manpower that we have. I think we take the Member's points and we will see how we can work more effectively and efficiently on that.

On the point that the Member mentioned about culling, currently, population control measures are undertaken at the Town Council level. I believe that the Town Councils' first option is probably not to cull. I think they have worked very actively with NEA and NParks to enforce, like I mentioned, on pigeon feeders. Any strategy towards managing such local issues would include a variety of different initiatives. And I think culling is just but one part of it. I think people normally would much rather not do if they do not have to.

NParks is also looking at a variety of other initiatives. The Member has talked about the use of contraceptives before. We are looking into that. So, there are various other measures that we are looking into, things that we are trying out. And indeed, I think, where effective, we will try to roll it out to different communities and see how we can develop a holistic solution towards this issue that we face.