Major myna pest victory

LISMORE City Council and community groups are marking up some wins controlling the pest dubbed "the cane toads of the sky".

TRAP SETTING: Volunteer Charlie Knight (left) and Anton Nguyen, Lismore Council environ. Picture: Mireille Merlet-Shaw

THEY'VE been called the cane toads of the sky.

The indian myna attacks other birds, evicts small native birds from their nests and destroys eggs. They also breed in tree hollows, making them unusable by other native animals and can have up to 15 eggs per breeding pair per year.

But an eradication program run by Lismore Council with community groups is having some success in keeping down the numbers of these flying pests.

Anton Nguyen is Lismore Council's environmental strategies assistant who is in charge of the program and says a new, larger trapping box is able to trap up to 10-15 birds at a time.

"The Lismore Men's Shed has been making traps for us and we have about 50 people trapping on private land, from

Indian Myna

farmers to people in town, as well as staff trapping on council land. The commercial traps are something we've designed ourselves which are proving to be successful because they work well with larger flocks," he said.

At a national indian myna conference in Canberra, the commercial traps received a lot of attention and Anton has been taking calls from other parts of NSW and Victoria. "It's our contribution to helping other groups around the country catch the birds."

One of the people Anton has recruited in the war against the indian myna is Charlie Knight, who has been placing traps around the Lismore showgrounds and cattle saleyards.

He has been able to trap about 50 birds in a few weeks and said he has noticed other species are starting to come back to the showgrounds.

"I didn't know anything about them before Anton gave me the booklet, but it would be good to see more people getting involved in the trapping."

After "free-feeding" the birds for a couple of days to attract them, Charlie sets his trap in the morning and then returns in the evening to break their necks as quickly and humanely as possible.

If you are too squeamish to kill them yourself, Anton has an arrangement with two vets in Lismore who will take the birds and euthanise them with gas and injection to the heart. Anton said the program is run in conjunction with other councils in the area and has taken off in the past 12 months.

"The population is really establishing itself now. This is our chance to get on top of it and stop it getting out of control," he said.

How to help:

To report sightings of a large number of birds roosting, phone Lismore Council on 1300 878 387.

If you want to trap birds, call Hanna at Richmond Landcare on 6619 1582.