Night of the Killer Grannies

If you go down to Wests Rugby Club in Belconnen in the Australian Capital Territory tonight, you're liable to get a shock. Around about seven, you'll notice a group of the more mature patrons back their stools away from the poker machines or finish off their veal parmigiana and move quietly to a back room.  Few opt for a second shandy when there is free tea and coffee inside.  For these folk have serious business to discuss; it's time to tote up the annual bird tally. How many Indian mynas has each of the killer grannies (or grandpas) added to the toll this year? I don't know if it's because they have more time, or because they remember BM time ("before mynas") but the myna-managers of Canberra tend to be on the more mature side.

The Annual General Meeting of the Canberra Indian Myna Action Group is one of the few times the killer grannies (and grandpas) of Canberra actually physically gather.  Perhaps a hundred of the three or four hundred that quietly go about their business in the privacy of their own backyard come together.  For they are the quiet killers at work in Australia’s national capital.  A city usually regarded as staid, boring, public-servanty.  These folk are far from boring.  They are on a quest.  A quest to rid the national capital of one of its most hated feral species: the Indian or common Myna.  One might think that a city that is inhabited by great influxes of the country’s elected officials during Parliamentary sitting seasons might have worse feral pests to worry about.  But the Canberra Indian Myna Action Group, or CIMAG for short,  don’t think so. They want the birds out of their city.

They aren’t waiting for the scientists to come up with the solutions.  In fact the scientists can’t even agree on whether Indian Mynas are a clear and present danger to Canberra’s environment in any case.  The “A” in CIMAG stands for “action” and they are taking this into their own hands, starting, literally, in their own backyards.

One scientist, Dr Chris Tidemann, now retired from the Australian National University, is revered among the myna-haters. He spent years developing his “Myna Minimiser” trap to lure these brown and yellow “rats of the sky”.  The respect for Dr Tidemann, now made patron of the group, doesn’t extend to widespread use of his trap.  It turns out that if you are an elderly myna-hater, the “Myna Minimiser” is not terribly suitable.  Despite its name, the trap is actually a rather large contraption.  Too large to be easily moved with arthritic hands and dicky knees.  So a few blokes designed a new one, the “Pee Gee” (named for its chief inventor Peter Green).  It’s a much smaller, two-part device.  About the size of a couple of beer slabs, one laid long-way on the ground, with two funnels attracting birds in but not letting them out.  The second is attached and upright, so captured birds can move through to this detachable roost-cum-death chamber.

Attracting the Indian mynas into the trap is the subject of much chatter on the killer grannies more favoured means of communication - the internet chat line.  Seeds, bread or meat will attract native birds to the trap.  Dog or sometimes cat food, the dry-type, is the favoured lure.  Discussion of the various brands, the relative attractiveness of star or bone-shaped, can last days on the CIMAG chat-line. A special on Home Brand dog food at the local supermarket travels faster on this forum than news of government subsidised hernia belts.

Once in the trap, the myna-catchers favourite topic comes up.  Dispatch.  No more controversial topic exists in the world of the myna-hater.  The favoured method is exhaust gas from the car.  No diesels or hybrids mind you, and do it off a cold engine before the catalytic converter kicks in.  Pop the cage in a compost bag and shove a tube from the exhaust to the bag and it’s all over in a matter of seconds. The technique hasn’t quite gained the blessing of all the authorities as yet but the myna actioners aren't going to wait for some soft bureaucrats to get their act together.  Anyone who has seen this type of dispatch has no qualms that it is quick and easy for the animals.

The cynics argue that this new backyard hobby in the nation’s capital can’t make a difference.  Those mynas killed, they say, are from the “doomed surplus” of juvenile birds destined never to breed in any case.  The Canberra carrying capacity for Indian Mynas is probably about 175,000 birds, so the removal of 9 or 10,000 birds a year by the myna actioners can’t possibly make a difference.  But the myna actioners argue, with great passion, that it is making a difference.  Some members of Canberra’s Ornithological Group have up to 30 years observations on their own backyard.  Native birds that used to nest in tree hollows couldn’t do so when the mynas arrived but resumed after trapping.  Hard to argue with that, they say.  When earnest trapping began three years ago, the Indian myna was the third most common bird in Canberra.  Two years ago it was the ninth most common and last year it had dropped to 12th.  Clear evidence of an impact, says CIMAG.

Incidentally, it was reportedly a member of the same Canberra Ornithological Group that introduced the Indian Myna to the city in the 1970s.  Apparently he had been ill in Sydney and associated the sound of the mynas with his recovery, listening to them from his recuperation bed.  On coming to Canberra he decided to bring some birds with him.  Presumably as the view of the mynas plunged, the birdo group would have decided against a life membership for this myna acclimatizer. 

While they want action before the science is in, the birdos of CIMAG are very happy to work with scientists. Tonight PhD student Kate Grarock, whose dreadlocks will once again be in stark contrast to the more common grey in the room, will report on her studies on the biodiversity impact of Indian mynas.  She has more nest boxes placed round Canberra's nature parks than she can possibly inspect and so CIMAG members happily volunteer to check what's in the nests.  In fact in some suburbs there's a waiting list to be a volunteer for the project.

Kate's study is an ecological one but at some point, someone will no doubt do a social study of the myna-haters.  At a recent seminar on the subject, I found out that one of the "Men's Sheds" in the Illawarra Shire in NSW is almost entirely devoted to making Indian myna traps (Men's Sheds apparently help us men stay sane by using our hands and talking to other blokes - Illawarra actually has seven of them, mostly doing woodworking but the one fitted for metalwork is going hell-for-leather on myna traps).  The Australian Capital Territory has recently opened its first jail (we used to outplace our criminals to NSW) and it has just commenced a program of myna-trap manufacture.  I'm assured these traps don't have escape hatches and the  wire cutters are counted carefully at the end of the day.

Communities want to do more about feral animals.  Whether it's cane toad gathering, carp fishing or pig hunting, people want to be involved. Even though many of these activities don't have a huge physical impact, they certainly raise awareness of the problem.  The myna people are actively gathering data that will help us understand the population dynamics of Indian mynas, and at the moment, it looks like they might be winning the race.