What’s killing our corellas?
WHEN Warwick bird lover Margaret Ackland first looked closer at the corellas feeding in her yard, she knew something wasn’t right.
When they started falling out of the trees dead, her mind went straight to poisoning.
Since she arrived in town late last year, a small group of corellas have flocked to the yard to feed on her chickens’ grain.
A few months ago their behaviour started to change, and she knew they were sick.
“They started turning up here very sick,” she said.
“Whatever it was, it made them want to eat all the time.
“When you had a close look at them their mouths were stuffed so full of grain.”
Ms Ackland had four die on her property within a few weeks.
“I managed to get hold of three of them and put them in my aviary but they only lasted a few days,” she said.
“It’s a terrible way for them to die, it can take up to a week to kill them.”
Their deaths have remained a mystery, until locals began to tell Ms Ackland about a bait they heard people were using.
“Somebody told me there is a bait out there that eats away at their stomachs,” she said.
In the past few days a silence has befallen the Warwick woman’s yard, with no corellas appearing in several days.
“It’s so strange, the place was full of them when I first arrived,” she said.
The native little corella is often considered a pest, due to the ability of large flocks to damage crops.
In Queensland it is is illegal to kill native birds, such as the little corella, without a permit.
