Canberra Indian Myna Action Group Inc.
Canberra Indian Myna Action Group Inc: c/- 6 Fanning Place KAMBAH ACT 2902: ph 02 6231 7461
Myna Matters Bulletin # 10
Dear CIMAG Members and Friends
The following provides an update on CIMAG activities.
Forthcoming AGM – put it in your diary
As you know, CIMAG doesn’t hold regular meetings but we will be holding
an Annual General
Meeting in August.
We are planning to have a couple of prominent and entertaining people
speak to us and we will be making an announcement or two. This will be a good opportunity for
CIMAG members (and supporters of our efforts) to get together to have a chat, to hear what has
happening, what is planned and to elect a new Committee. Details of the program will be
circulated to members shortly. We are planning to hold it on the
evening of Wednesday
22 August
. The venue and time are yet to be settled. We will let you know well in advance of
those details, and to circulate nomination forms for the Committee and voting proxy forms. We
will advise members who have email via our CIMAG News Email Distribution System and to
others by post. To ensure that you get the notice and the various papers and reports, if you
have email and have not yet registered with our News Email Distribution System, please do so
now by sending a blank email to
news-subscribe@indianmynaaction.org.au
. Remember this is
different to the CIMAG Chatline.
Myna Control Spreading
An exciting development over the past year has been the number of groups and communities
that have also started to tackle the problem of Indian Mynas. It is also heartening to see that
local councils and agencies are being involved with their communities in this activity. And
that goes for councils and agencies in the area around Canberra. The Queanbeyan City
Council and the Yass Pasture Protection Board are supporting local communities and farmers
in reducing mynas. Up on the north coast of New South Wales, environmental and other
community groups with local shires are developing plans and using various traps to get on
top of Indian Mynas before they take hold. People are looking to get CIMAG-type groups up
and running in various parts of Sydney and elsewhere. We will keep in touch with these
groups as best we can, and hopefully we can all learn from our various experiences.
PhD Research Project — a big step closer
Wonderful news for CIMAG is the advice we have received in the last fortnight that the
Collaborative Research Centre for Invasive Animals will provide substantial funding towards the
PhD research project into the impact of mynas and, amongst other things, the effectiveness of
trapping efforts. Dr Chris Tidemann and Prof David Lindenmayer (both from ANU) are also
putting funds to the project and have agreed to develop and manage the project and oversee
the PHD student. The Canberra Ornithologists Group (COG) has also agreed to contribute to
the project and we are also hopeful of a positive response from Birds Australia, the national bird
watchers’ group. This goes a long way towards getting this important research work off the
ground. This project will help to put a scientific base around our general observations that
mynas are bad for our birds, but trapping and our other strategies can have a significant impact.
Where are the Mynas.
The answer for those in areas where we have been trapping for a while is: “not around here".
I have in the past fortnight had three members mention to me that they now get surprised
when they see an Indian Myna around their area. This is in the areas (like Aranda, north and
west Kambah and parts of Garran) where we have had members taking out large numbers of
mynas. Such is the local impact of trapping that people in those areas rarely see mynas and
