Multilingual messages target cockie feeding
A multilingual ‘Don’t feed the cockatoos’ campaign is underway in Lorne.
Stickers on street bins and at outdoor eating areas, along with flyers, share the message in simplified Chinese, Punjabi, Hindi and English, helping to educate the town’s many seasonal visitors.
Signs emphasise that cockies are wild birds and that feeding them can make them reliant on people for food and help spread diseases.
They also help amplify the message that responsibility rests with visitors, residents and business owners alike to avoid feeding the birds.
The summer campaign accompanies rollout of ‘Operation Lockatoo’ – fitting of lid mechanisms on residential bins to help prevent the birds from foraging and spreading litter.
The six-month mechanism-fitting program will run until April and follows trials of nine bin modifications and lid mechanisms during the past two years.
The mechanisms are being fitted street by street. People can check when locks will be fitted in their neighbourhoods on our website, and can receive notifications via the Surf Coast Rubbish and Recycling App.
People can help prevent cockatoos from bin foraging by
- engaging lid mechanisms if fitted
- avoiding over-filling bins
- not leaving out seed or other feed which attracts the wild birds into the town.