GOVERNMENT has abandoned a plan to rid the island of its feral chicken population.

A pilot programme was announced in February of this year, its aim to reduce the economic hazard the birds pose to farmers, their threat to aircraft and the potential spread of avian flu.

The plan saw participation from key stakeholders such as the Board of Agriculture, the National Parks Commission, local farmers, the veterinary community and the Bermuda Audubon Society. In spite of a dedicated effort, sources say it was stymied by an absence of funding and manpower.

"The programme clearly showed that we needed to have a dedicated staff in order to do it," a stakeholder revealed. "Because no extra funding was made available, the departments were required to find money within their budget and do it with existing staff. So the result was very predictable."

The initiative was announced in February by Environment Minister Neletha Butterfield. She described the programme as necessary because the feral chicken problem was "persistent" and required a "comprehensive and decisive approach".

"Feral chickens are not just a noisy nuisance to many neighbourhoods, they have proven to be an economic hazard for our farmers," Ms Butterfield said at the time.

"The chickens pose a threat to aircraft and are a potential reservoir for diseases including the avian influenza, which is currently in Asia, Africa and Europe."

The Environment Ministry offered no comment yesterday however it had been its intent to target Spittal Pond and St. David's, two areas known to have large feral chicken populations.

"The objective of the pilot programme is to cull feral chickens from the two target areas by the end of May 2006, to evaluate the effectiveness of different capture techniques and to obtain information on costs versus efforts, including an estimate of the resources required for an island-wide programme," Mrs. Butterfield announced then.

A source who spoke with this newspaper said the programme was run and a report submitted, however Government refused to create a budget to support the findings.

"The pilot programme was run primarily through Environmental Protection under Dr. Tom Sleeter and Jonathan Nisbett. There was some very substantial success in the early days of trapping and culling but the truth of the matter is, they got the dumb ones. They were then left with the core of the trap-shy and they breed just like the rest of them. The result was they were getting very few animals and it was costing just as much money and manpower. So nothing has changed.

"It was one of those things mandated. Some nice collaboration did come out of it between the different agencies involved, but given that it was a pilot and there was a time frame to conduct it, it had an anticipated result."

The programme was implemented using the expertise of Custom Services, a private sector company said to have captured thousands of feral chickens and which boasted invaluable knowledge of trapping techniques. Planned methods of control were to include a call centre at the Department of Environmental Health, software to track reported sightings, traps for capturing, euthanasia and destruction of eggs.

"Of course, Government doesn't want to increase expenses," the source continued. "Government decrees that departments won't receive an increase in their budget but asks them to submit any plans for the chicken culling they might have. Of course no one put in a submission because they had other obligations in place and they were told they wouldn't get any more money.

"You can't blame civil servants for not doing the work, or for Government putting a cap on expenditures. I don't exactly know were it stands right now."

The insider suggested that as the problem is not going to disappear, an island-wide effort might aid success.

"My belief is it will only work if we got the community involved. Government can lead to some extent, but it will get to a situation where the returns are very low. And if you pay government wages for people to go out and come back with a chicken and eggs...it needs a community-based approach."