In the Daily Telegraph (Sydney NSW) newspaper Tue 07th July 2014 page 44: "War Declared On Aggressive Birds":
Campbelltown Council is preparing to wage war on Indian Mynah birds. The council is proposing an "Indian Mynah bird action programme" that will focus on community education and access to bird traps. Council officers will recommend the programme be tested for 12 months starting in September.
A similar programme conducted in Wollongong resulted in more than 500 traps bought and in excess of 3,500 Indian Mynah birds captured. It is proposed to have the traps constructed in local "mens sheds" as funding from trap sales will contribute towards their individual programmes.
The above is only an extract, full article appears as per intro.
Good to see people taking positive action on this problem. Maybe one day in the future Australia will be free of indian mynahs (and a heap of other pests).
Too little far too late in my book Night Parrot, just look at the rabbit, fox and cane toad situation. Whilst numbers could be considerably reduced a total erradication would be near impossible.
Still, better than doing nothing I guess...
The major problem is many councils cannot be bothered, and thus the birds go unchecked and spread to other areas. Being prolific breeders they spread quite quickly, especially in urban areas where food and shelter is easily sourced and they have no major predators to keep them in check.
The rabbit, the fox and the cane toad all over again...
You hit the nail on the head. In many isolated rural towns the Mynas are only just establishing -by following major arterial roads from larger centres-, and could comparatively easily be controlled before they become a major problem there, yet it seems many municipalities don't seem to take the issue seriously. In Tasmania small numbers were observed, presumed as stowaways from ships from the mainland and they were eradicated before they could establish.
It would be interesting if surveys and research were coordinated with the NSW eradication initiative in order to see how or if local native bird populations respond to the programme.
It's never too late & good on the Campbelltown Council for its initiative. A start needs to be made somewhere & Council is setting an excellent example for others to follow. Who will do it if Council doesn't? Nothing positive is achieved by doing nothing.
A second point is that we need to establish a culture in Australia of placing our highest value on Australian wildlife & getting rid of ferals. Campbelltown Council, by setting this example, is helping to establish this culture.
My final point is that if we can send native animals into extinction then we can certainly do the same for ferals.
Just last year I observed a small number of Indian Mynahs in Quirindi (near Tamworth NSW), we had never seen them prior to 2012-2013 so I sent an email off to the Liverpool Plains Shire Council (Enviornment section) outling the potential problems that lay ahead. A similar letter was also forwarded to the local paper, The Quirindi Advocate.
Well, not even acknowledgement from either of the two parties contacted...so they will probably act when the birds breed up into plague proportions like in suburban Sydney...damage will be done by then.
It's certainly no downhill battle, Raven, but your letters are a start. Good on you. If you find a few more folk who are up for the fight they might like to fire off a fusilage of letters to the Quirindi Advocate & the Liverpool Plains Shire Council.
For what it's worth I've written three times to PM Abbott asking what plant species will be in his Direct Action Plan to combat climate change. So far no response. I might send my next missive on this matter to his sidekick, Greg Hunt, Minister for the Environment.
went to Terrigal surf Life Saving cafe for coffee 10 minutes max and stopped counting at 60 Birds.
Well clearly its time for Terrigal council to join the movement. Slackers.
Well, George, don't forget to post your letter to the Terrigal Council recommending they get on board the Common Myna eradication bandwaggon.
Well done, shelley. If there were lots of traps & other measures taken to combat Indian Mynas (e.g., replacing palms with native vegetation, getting rid of nesting material) surely Myna numbers would be reduced.
Moving up the mountains? I was in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains and seen a few Indian Mynahs around the shopping area, but none are to be seen at Blackheath and Mount Victoria which are not far west from Katoomba. The march is on?
Also I have noted that there are no Noisy Minahs, the Aussie native, around Mount Victoria, back in Sydney they are everywhere.
Maybe its an opportune time to contact the Blue Mts Council about eradication of the Katoomba Indian Mynahs.
For Noisy Miners I guess the Sydney suburban scene would suit them perfectly; sparse lower-tier plantings and the open treeline providing a wide and uninterrupted view of their territory.
I agree with Night Parrot's analysis. Noisy Miners are commonly found in open woodland. In Adelaide they frequent the parklands around the city where there have been trees with virtually no understorey at least since Europeans invaded & changed the landscape. The Adelaide City Council is now planting significant areas with understorey so it'll be interesting to see what happens to the Noisy Miner population.
It appears that I spoke too soon...was at the local garage (Mount Victoria) on Sunday to get the paper and spotted a pair of Indian Mynah's trawling through take away rubbish left in the parking area...
There are plenty of Indian Mynahs at Bathurst so they must have crossed the Blue Mts at some stage. They are mainly urban birds that don't venture very far from towns, which is why they get so much attention. It is a shame that so much of the conservation dollar is spent on these urban conservation efforts and so little in rural areas. In the Blue Mts there are much more pressing problems than Mynahs.
Deciding where the conservation dollar is spent is an interesting conundrum. If lots of folk can be persuaded to be conservation minded then the conservation dollar will be spent where the people are. I'm a great believer in individuals & groups deciding what they can do at the local level within the limits of their resources.
Of course, there are larger conservation issues which require a state or national approach. Unfortunately, there's a good chance that, global warming notwithstanding, hell will freeze over before state & national governments will devote the resources necessary to really make a positive impact on the big environmental issues & reverse the damage that's currently being done. Hence the importance of local people doing what they can because even small efforts can influence big issues.
They might be closely tied to human activities by nature but I'm not so sure they are confined to towns and domestic settlements.
I've seen them in some pretty remote rural agricultural areas of Qld and Vic, they seem to follow arterial roads.
It makes sense that indian mynahs would follow the arterial roads and the food that is thrown from cars. A few years back there was a TV documentary about a bloke that walked the country roads for many years, surviving on "roadside fare". If he could manage on jettisoned half-eaten maccas and half empty coke cans, no doubt the indian mynas can also.
There is also truth in Woko's comment. The less we rely on government to look after the environment and the more we do ourselves, the better the environment will be.
Reading through the comments I tend to agree, after reflection, that the Indian Mynah tends to stick to cleared areas where there is human habitat as they are opportunistic scavengers.
I live in a heavily timbered area and never seen or heard them here, but go down to the town area and there they are.
The cleared urban areas of towns are cities are ideal for them, food is in abundance, mainly from people who feed native birds and litter, hence why I don't see them in heavy bush areas like here.
The key to controlling them is from the onset when they first appear in small numbers, otherwise they become out of control quickly as they breed well and fast.
Every little bit helps as Night Parrot and Woko said, we must address the matter ourselves rather than rely on government agencies, however, in many towns an cities it's now a case of too little being done too late.
It would be interesting to see what would happen to Indian Mynah numbers if
a. humans ceased throwing their rubbish & discarded food around
b. exotic vegetation was replaced by indigenous vegetation to enhance conditions for native birds
They do take their own food when they can be bothered though.
I've seen hundreds congregated together taking advantage of grasshopper plagues, and they eat a lot of insects in lawns.
They will nest in natural tree hollows in native trees, though from what I've seen it seems they much prefer holes in houses. Once I even saw a pair nest in the dense foliage of a cypress.
Here's a quick read for all of you if you haven't found it, it's only about 6 pages of content, and 5 years out of date, but is still very informative on the issue.
https://www.daff.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/74925/IPA-Indian-Myna-Risk-Assessment.pdf
Although in response to GregL, I'm interested in hearing about the more pressing problems in the mountains? Even if they don't tend to stray far from urban areas, I would've thought that given the large number of hollow nesting native species in the mountains and growing urbanisation would be reason enough for it to be considered quite a major issue. Especially if they have only relatively recently spread there. Who knows how they might adapt and spread over the next few decades if left unchecked..
Unfortunately that paper is what it is - a risk assessment and not an action plan. Interesting that the cane sugar industry may have brought the myna to Australia, as it did the cane toad. We have a lot to thank them for, including the white death that saturates most of the manufactured food we buy today in the supermarket.
There are progressive councils around the country that are acting on the myna problem and, as in the ACT, communities are also getting involved and making good progress. Concerned BIBY members should pester their own councils and get people together to help in myna destruction along the lines of the ACT program. Nothing much is going to happen otherwise.
Yes, indeed, Night Parrot. A national & coordinated major assault on the Indian Mynah is badly needed.
We never seem to learn from the past, it will be a case of too little too late with these Indian Mynah's. Whilst we never will totally eradicate them, we may be able to control their growth in population?
So, I guess we can add them to the ever growing problems we have inflicted on this great land: Rabbits, Foxes, Camels, Brumbies, Cane Toads, Starlings, European Black Bird, European Wasp, Fire Ants, European Carp.
Then add the hundreds of noxious weeds to the above, not a great track record eh?
I wasn't suggesting it as a solution, but the risk assessment does layout how they operate and affect the environment, essentially it provides a good background to the issue for those interested in it. And yes Raven, this definitely is now focused on containment rather than eradication, and to be honest, even if they are cleared out in these urban areas, I highly doubt their spot would be taken by declining native species. Not to say that trapping programs shouldn't be run in all areas, even in areas they are already highly established this will assist in stopping their expansion, but I think the main focus has to be at the fringes where they are still only beginning to establish themselves or in areas where they are in direct competition with many of our native species for nesting hollows. Perhaps if their spread can be stopped, maybe then we can consider pushing them back from there to minimise their impact.
Also given the local nature of these issues, the forefront of the action will occur with cooperation and initiatives of local government rather than state or federal government. Unless it comes to a point where they threaten something that they consider important like the economy rather than the status of our native fauna, I doubt the state/federal government will particularly interest themselves in fixing the issue.
Amateur, that's an interesting idea to tackle the Indian Mynahs at the fringes. It's rather akin to the bush care strategy of dealing with outlier weeds so that native vegetation can replace them.
Whether native bird species will replace eradicated Indian Mynahs will have a lot to do with what indigenous habitat is available, I suspect.