My Husband and I are on a 1/3 of an acre and have spent the last 10+ years creating a native friendly backyard, with natives trees and shrubs and nesting boxes.We live south east of Melbourne in the Westernport region We have an eastern rosella nesting, Three days ago we could hear approx. 3-4 rosellas in the nesting box, now we can only hear one. The indian mynas pretty much go in the nest, we try to get rid of them, today we could only hear one eastern rosella left. The indian mynas keep going in the nest. My question is how do we get rid of these introduced speices and make our backyard a native one?
Hi there kmhurst. There's lots of debate on this site about mynas which you can read by using the Search box above.
Lots of folk believe that it's impossible to get rid of this feral pest. However, if we can so easily bring about the extinction of so many Australian birds and animals I fail to see so far why we can't make mynas extinct.
My view is that a broad, integrated approach is needed. By making your garden a native garden I believe you've taken the first and very important step to reducing the impact of mynas as they then have to compete with the attracted Australian wildlife. So well done! If you were to make your garden an indigenous native garden it would be likely to attract even more Australian wildlife & provide even more competition for mynas. Perhaps your garden is already indigenous.
Mynas nest in many places, particularly holes in eaves etc. so it's important to block up these holes to make breeding as difficult as possible for them. They also build nests from all sorts of materials including junk that profligate humans discard. So ensure you don't have rubbish lying around. And encourage your neighbours to do likewise. Maybe your neighbourhood won a recent tidy town competition so it's already on the way to making life awkward for mynas. If not, then maybe starting up a tidy town competition would satisfy the neatfreaks as well as the antimynas.
Pet food is a great attractor for mynas so if you have pets ensure that you don't leave leftovers lying about. And encourage your neighbours to do likewise.
I seem to remember a post about myna traps. It would be helpful, I imagine, to get hold of one or more of these. Your local council might be a first port of call.
Apparently, a rather successful myna reduction project is running in the national capital. I don't know the specifics but if you Googled this you might be able to get more information & try applying it to your garden.
On a broader front, you might want to enlist the support of your neighbours and local environment groups to enlist the council in running a myna eradication project, perhaps along lines similar to Canberra.
Good luck with your efforts, kmhurst. It'll take lots of time & effort but that's eoften what it takes to rectify environmental damage.
Thank you woko for your advice. Unfortunately the indian mynas were successful in killing the baby rosellas and evicting them from their nest, much to our disappointment. We will not give up on keeping our bakyard asnative as we can. Your advice on the indian myna traps seems worth a look at but I have look a litle into it, I will take your advice and contact the local council, maybe even the park rangers. We don't have any pets, only tropical fish (especially no cats) as we feel they do not benefit the wildlife,nor do most of our neighbours. I do have native plants but i am not sure as to whether they are indigeneous to our area, this is something that I will look into. In the mean time woko I do have indian mynas nesting in two other nesting boxes on my property, they have not hatched is their some way of disrupting their nest? Because if they hatch I don't think I will intervene.
If I were you, I would remove all of their nesting material, destroy any eggs if any. The more often you disrupt the nesting the less likely they are to produce offspring. They will either give up or move on, so if you can trap some and have them humanely euthanised that would be for the best. I know there are those who don't like doing this, but if YOU are serious about removing the problem, then that is the only way.
This is what I am doing with Blackbird and Starling nests, wait until they have laid eggs, and about 10 days later, destroy the nest and eggs. They soon move on, but at least I have slowed the breeding rate down, just a bit. Unfortunately there is no easy way of trapping Blackbirds and Starlings, but if I could I would.
Dale Huonville, Tasmania
Kmhurst, I endorse Dale's comments. Lots of people do find it difficult to intervene once feral birds have hatched. However, if we can focus on what is in the interests of the native wildlife then it makes it easier to do so. Humanely, of course.
As the Mynahs are inhabiting your nest boxes I would suggest you look into adding some baffles to the boxes which are said to discourage mynahs. This is a handy site to have a look at and at the bottom includes a link to mynah proof nestboxes plus some other uselful links.
See here http://www.hastingslandcare.org.au/projects/indian-myna
You may even consider joining this group as it is also in the Western Port area and may have some other projects that may interest you.
Alison
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"the earth is not only for humans, but for all animals and living things."
Yes get in and get the nesting materials out of the nest boxes (and the eggs). You might need to block up the holes for a while too if they try and get back in.
The baffles are worth a shot too - I have had mixed reports on their success. If they don't work, simply take the myna nesting material out again.
The price of freedom from mynas is eternal vigilance.
Woko, the price in Bundaberg Qld is $2.
http://bundaberg.qld.gov.au/news/2012/10/03/indian-myna-major-pest
I visited my father in Bundaberg yesterday and he said something abut the Bundaberg Council having a program to get rid of the Indian Mynah
Peter
This is all good advice kmhurst and your personal experience just goes to show how dastardly and vicious mynahs are in evicting and replacing native birds. I would go a little further in removing mynah nesting material from your boxes. In my experience feral birds like mynahs, sparrows and starlings are filthy birds and are, I suspect, lice-ridden. As Holly suggests, close up the box for a while afterwards, but fumigate at the same time. All part of the vigilance advocated by Woko. Its great to see councils like Bundaberg take some action. The message is spreading slowly but surely.
A $2 bounty is surely just one prong in an integrated approach that's needed in the quest to make a major impact on mynas. I'm interested to know if Bundaberg Council has a more comprehensive strategy such as natural habitat restoration to deal with mynas. And how much Bundabergians are paid for every myna they prevent. The bounty at least gets the ball rolling but let's hope the approach goes much further than that.
"Bundabergers" surely Woko. :) Yes a more comprehensive strategy would be nice, but it is a positive move considering there are other councils that do bugger all about the problem. I find Bundaberg a bit of a mix so far as the environment is concerned. Not far from the city there is the famous Mon Repos Beach turtle nesting area and there is a nice treed camping ground at Bargara Beach. The city has the potential to be an environmental showpiece for tourists if the determination was there. But I don't think it is. Bundaberg is heading the way of most coastal cities where development takes priority over the environment. It wouldn't hurt to plant a few million trees around the city for starters.
I was just reading this study (Lowe et al. 2011, see link below) which showed relatively little impact of mynas on native cavity-nesters in a city setting (simply because they prefer to nest in urban situations and avoid native bushland where the native birds nest).
http://www.waverley.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/43491/Common_mynas_2011.pdf
That's interesting zosterops. The study (in abstract) seems to concentrate on the city environment per se ie "heavily urbanised" which I take to mean city and inner suburbs. I'm not sure that this is where the real problem is. I know that mynas evict native birds from hollows at least as far out as Emerald (50kms or more east of central Melbourne) and certainly in FNQ indian mynas are prolific well outside the townships. I guess the urban environment suits them best, but as they increase in numbers so, it seems reasonable to assume, do their territories and range. In my view it is the fringes of cities where native birds can prosper due to effective environmental planning, lower levels of development and deliberate habitat regeneration. In these same fringes, I believe, indian mynas can be the most pernicious.
Yes, NightParrot, I notice that the good burghers of Bundaberg indicate on their website that Bundaberg is open for development. Oh, dear!
I wonder if a comprehensive strategy for eradicating mynas would have to focus both on fringe & urban areas. If they were removed from fringe areas they'd be quickly replaced by their relatives from the urban areas, I'd imagine.
Yes I agree Woko. My focus on fringe areas was to allay any misconception that mynahs "avoid native bushland". They simply don't. They might prefer the built environment, but it seems they will readily adapt to any situation.
Yes, open for "development". In regard to the need for major tree planting, I should have added that this could apply to most cities and towns. No matter where one lives or travels through, it is not hard to count the many small bare patches of ground that could accommodate at least one tree, not to mention the large bare expanses that could accommodate whole forests.
Thank you everyone for your advice on indian mynas, I will take everything on board, I will even disrupt nests, after all the indian mynas do not belong in my backyard. Just a thought, but does a fake owl do the trick if I place it on or near the nesting boxes? Altough we did loose our eastern rosellas I am proud to say we had tawny frog mouths successfully raise a baby, also the noisy mynas have raised their young.
If you have some resident Pied Currawongs and Australian Ravens they will help get rid of the Indian Mynahs, as they will feed on their chicks. Some Indian Mynahs nested above the airconditioner unit at a friends place, however, due to the local Raven popping in and thus grabbing the fledgling Indian Myanh chicks out of the nest and eating them, the Indian Mynahs soon moved on.
I don't think those fake owls and eagles that you can get from homeware shops are that effective, unfortunately.
Apparently they work well for a little while and then the wildlife realises 'Hey, this thing is pretty harmless' and ignores it. I read something (I can't remember where it was, sorry) about Indian Mynahs adapting to them particularly well...