The common myna bird is in the sights of Cllr Jack Medcraft. He’s convinced Hume City Council to have a crack at eradicating them from the city, to have ratepayers fund an action group dedicated to removing them, and he wants the bird officially listed as a pest.
Describing them as having “spooky eyes”, he says people should stop feeding them. However, Cllr Medcraft’s hostility is not shared by animal charity the RSPCA, or the State government.
Speaking at a council meeting on Monday 22 July, Cllr Medcraft said: “This has been a contentious issue of mine for 17 or 20 years.
“I’ve raised it a number of times in council and I got told at one stage that I had the wrong bird. Well, there’s no doubt about it, I knew which bird was what. I took upon myself to grab some traps and went out and caught these birds, and see you later alligator, you were gone in the dark.
“We need to address this particular problem because they are a really serious issue, they are absolute terrors in the air.
“They are killing native birds by the hundreds. They will invade a nest and either kick the eggs out and take over, or they’ll attack the young and kill them.
“They sit on your fence and they watch you, and if anything happens to one of their mates they really do get defensive.
“I really want to get these declared as a pest. Let’s look at the serious nature of what they are doing to our native flora and fauna. They have yellow beaks and spooky eyes.”
Cllr Medcraft said a council officer said it was cruel to trap them.
“ I don’t care about the cruel bit, if you do it humanely you are doing us a service to get rid of them. And stop feeding the birds.”
Cllr Jodi Jackson said she doesn’t object to a state-wide approach to managing the common myna, but “it is not considered to be a noxious species”.
“We are required to make decisions that represent the best interests of ratepayers,” she said.
“I do have concerns about the cost of developing common myna bird action group. This is something Hume City Council rarely does for groups who are in need, let alone a group that doesn’t currently exist.”
Cllr Jackson said council is being asked to deal with an issue the State government is not concerned about.
“The state is not concerned about it, so we won’t get any support from the state, so this really will come down on Hume ratepayers to foot the bill for this.”
A paper published by the RSPCA states that while the common myna (Indian myna) is considered a highly invasive species, there has been little research on its negative impacts on native plants and animals.
“Although recent research using long-term observations of bird abundance in Canberra has suggested that the common myna has a negative impact on the long-term abundance of some native bird species, the significance of this impact has been questioned, as has the methodology used for the research,” states the report’s authors.
“Furthermore, since the impact of common mynas is not clearly understood, it is yet to be determined if killing mynas has any effect other than reducing local myna populations.”
The report states that common mynas prefer to nest in highly modified habitats and artificial structures found in residential and commercial areas, rather than in vegetation, which is the opposite of what native birds prefer.
“Thus, restoring habitat, by planting trees for example, and also making urban areas less suitable for mynas may be a more useful approach to their management.”
The cost of Cllr Medcraft’s battle with the bird, and the financial liability to city ratepayers, was not declared in a council report on the issue.
How your councillors voted:
| For | Against |
|---|---|
| Cllr Jack Medcraft | Cllr Trevor Dance |
| Cllr Jarrod Bell | Cllr Jodi Jackson |
| Cllr Carly Moore | |
| Mayor Naim Kurt | |
| Cllr Karen Sherry (deputy mayor) | |
| Cllr Chris Hollow | |
| Cllr Sam Misho | |
| Cllr Joseph Haweil |
