OVENS Landcare has received $3193 from the ANZ Seeds of Renewal grant program to help address common myna birds in the North East. Landcare facilitator, Penny Raleigh, said the funds will go towards helping community members combat myna numbers in their gardens. “Half of the money will be used to buy more traps, and the other half will be used to actually pay someone to distribute them and teach people when they drop them off how to use them and how to set them up,” she said. Ms Raleigh said the myna traps are the best way to reduce the bird numbers, aside from planting a garden of shrubby native plants. “You can improve your garden to deter them but when you’ve got a large open lawn space, that they just love, then trapping them is a good way to at least knock the numbers down a little bit,” she said. Ms Raleigh said Ovens Landcare is grateful to receive the grant to address an increasing community demand for help to reduce the introduced bird species, which usurp nests and hollows and kill the young and destroy the eggs of native bird species. “We’ve had an absolute explosion of inquiries to borrow the traps recently so having more around is going to make life so much easier,” she said. “Any money we can get to do requested jobs done is great.” To contact Ovens Landcare for advice or to borrow a myna trap, visit https://ovenslandcarenetwork.org.au/. Ms Raleigh also suggests people visit Gardens for Wildlife (https://gardensforwildlifevictoria.com/) to view more resources on improving your backyard and reducing the number of introduced species in native spaces. The ANZ Seeds of Renewal grant program has been providing funds towards regional and rural groups that support environmental sustainability for 22 years.
