Bayside Council to continue controversial Indian myna cull program

A CONTROVERSIAL Indian myna cull program is set to continue after Bayside Council voted in favour of it at a meeting last night.

Bayside Council’s Indian myna cull program continues.

BAYSIDE Council is proudly extending its Indian myna bird culling program, despite vets in the area pulling out of the project.

Under the program, volunteers from the Bayside Indian Myna Action Group are gassing trapped birds at a Cheltenham depot in hour-long timeslots four days a week.

The council last night voted in favour of funding the program after the 12-month trial was deemed a success.

The culling project was set up by the council after community requests to eradicate the invasive pest, and is now run by the volunteer group with council support.

The volunteer group places traps around the municipality at locations where the birds are seen, and uses carbon dioxide gas to euthanise trapped birds.

Councillor Bruce Lowe said he was “very proud” of the program, which led to a significant reduction of the pest birds over the past year.

“I’m very proud to be a part of it,” he said.

He said up to 1400 of the birds were killed in the 12 months of the program, but the combined total was higher and included 74 he had personally put down.

Councillor and former mayor Felicity Frederico said the program provided an “excellent blueprint” and would help other areas follow suit.

“The community has taken ownership of this program ... and the numbers from it are outstanding,” Cr Frederico said.

However there were concerns about whether the project was humane, and about the impact it could have on native birds.

Up to 20 mynas died in traps prior to being euthanised, and up to 145 native noisy miners were trapped but released.

The original plan was for professional vets to do the euthanising in their clinics, but the meeting heard this was “logistically” difficult, and all vets involved had pulled out of the program.

The RSPCA has previously said there was no general agreement about the need for culling and efforts to enhance bird diversity in urbanised areas should instead be encouraged.