Here's looking at you...a small flock of recalcitrant cockatoos is troubling residents of Potts Point and Elizabeth Bay and causing worsening damage to apartment buildings. Photo: Nick Moir
Residents have tried everything to get rid of them: flashing lights, rubber snakes, spikes on sills, mirrors on windows, chilli oil on woodwork, even lying in wait with hoses or water pistols. But the sulphur-crested cockatoos of Potts Point, which have caused more than $40,000 in damage to one building alone, are absolutely incorrigible, say infuriated residents, whose plan for a cull is stuck in bureaucratic limbo.
Many of the homes affected are in heritage-listed, art-deco buildings, with wooden windowframes eaten through by the birds. At Kingsclere, a 1912 building on Macleay Street, cockatoos have destroyed slate roof tiles, causing them to drop seven storeys to the street.
The birds have also caused damage to Potts Point and Elizabeth Bay apartment buildings Werrington, Ikon, Villard, Byron Hall, Tara and the Devere Hotel, where a neon sign fell after cockatoo sabotage.
Frustrated Kingsclere residents have applied to the National Parks and Wildlife Service for a licence to kill cockatoos. Asked how many birds would need to be culled to fix the problem, Kingsclere resident David Crompton said: ''I don't know. But it seems the same five or six keep coming.''
He conceded that more birds may return after a cull, but said it would at least halt the damage for a while. National Parks officers confirmed the damage and the public risk it posed, leaving residents optimistic of a solution.
But the City of Sydney objected to a cull and suggested a trial of a shocktrack system, a non-lethal deterrent used successfully at Cook + Phillip Pool and Woolloomooloo wharves.
''Shocktrack is a thin plastic tape that can be easily adhered to windowsills … it puts a non-lethal shock through and the birds don't come back,'' Greens councillor Irene Doutney said.
A cull of the native birds would be ''tragic'', she said. She was also concerned about safety risks, and the risk of domestic pets eating the poisoned carcasses. A petition to save the Potts Point cockatoos has gathered more than 500 signatures.
''The owners seemed to have made their minds up … that they wanted the birds killed,'' Cr Doutney said.
The shocktrack was not an option at this stage, a National Parks spokeswoman said, adding that a cull was a last resort. ''The NPWS and City of Sydney are exploring all the options available and are committed to working with the building owners to implement a management strategy to protect the safety of the public and property in the most humane way," she said.
''Meanwhile, we wait and get chewed to bits,'' Mr Crompton lamented.