{"id":370462,"date":"2026-04-09T02:09:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T02:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/370462\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T02:09:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T02:09:07","slug":"they-poo-all-over-the-yard-little-corellas-are-terrorising-kangaroo-island-and-nothing-can-stop-them-kangaroo-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/370462\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018They poo all over the yard\u2019: little corellas are terrorising Kangaroo Island \u2013 and nothing can stop them | Kangaroo Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of little corellas that have been terrorising the inhabitants of Kangaroo Island<\/a> have been culled but it won\u2019t be enough to fix the problem, authorities say.<\/p>\n

The birds, which are not native to the island, have covered a local school in faeces, torn up infrastructure, damaged crops and caused mental distress to residents with their screeching.<\/p>\n

They have been spotted using the nesting hollows of the endangered glossy-black cockatoo<\/a>, smashing their eggs and killing their nestlings.<\/p>\n

Past attempts to control populations by shooting, scaring, trapping or gassing them have failed, with the highly intelligent birds learning how to survive or just moving to cause havoc somewhere else.<\/p>\n

Little corellas at the Kangaroo Island Community Education\u2019s Kingscote campus. Photograph: Rodney Bell<\/p>\n

Little corellas arrived on Kangaroo Island (KI) in the 1960s. Their population has skyrocketed as they enjoy a predictable water supply from stock troughs and dams, and food from grain crops.<\/p>\n

Parents have been particularly concerned about the flock\u2019s presence at the Kangaroo Island Community Education\u2019s Kingscote campus, where the birds have covered tables and play equipment with droppings.<\/p>\n

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The Kangaroo Island Landscape Board finished a shooting trial in March, which killed 2,640 little corellas, including at the school. It used thermal and infrared technology to target them as they roosted at night.<\/p>\n

The board\u2019s general manager, Will Durack, says night-time shooting was more efficient, with the roosting birds easier to kill in large numbers, but it is not clear how much of a dent they made in the population.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve created the perfect environment for them,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat they need is reliable water, and they love irrigated lawns, so places like schools have the perfect habitat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re in such high density around the school, there\u2019s a huge amount of droppings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diseases such as the bacterial condition ornithosis <\/a>can be passed from little corellas to humans.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut almost more than that, it\u2019s the physical noise of the things,\u201d Durack says.<\/p>\n

He says students talk about mental health issues, and about struggling to engage with their studies because of the noise.<\/p>\n

\u201cLittle corellas are also an ecological problem,\u201d he says. \u201cThey interact with the woodland nesting birds \u2026 and outcompete those birds, so they don\u2019t have the nesting sites to have their young.<\/p>\n

Little corella droppings on a table at the Kingscote campus. Photograph: Rodney Bell<\/p>\n

\u201cThey love the nets in the tennis courts, they\u2019ll rip that to pieces. They\u2019ll pull off electric covers, sealants on gutters.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople\u2019s yachts, they love to sit on them and gnaw at the sails.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are three corella species in Australia. The little corella (Cacatua sanguinea, meaning \u201cblood-stained cockatoo\u201d, for the pink markings on their face) is the most widespread.<\/p>\n

Their destructive habits and loud shrieks have been the bane of councils across the country.<\/p>\n

Eagles and falcons have been trialled as \u201cthe perfect scarecrow<\/a>\u201d to humanely deter them.<\/p>\n

On KI, residents have tried to disturb flocks with lights, noise, drones and fireworks but that only served to make them more vigilant, a report into the shooting trial says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis attempt to move birds on rarely worked but made flocks more difficult to work with,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n

\u201cLarge flocks create significant noise disturbance, and this can affect people\u2019s sleep \u2026 large flocks also leave considerable faecal matter under and around roost sites.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of the existing deterrent or control techniques have effectively reduced little corella populations within the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previous shooting trials have been ineffective, but the night-time shooting using thermal or infrared scopes showed promise. Adding a suppressor to a 12-gauge shotgun reduces the chance of frightening the birds away, the report says.<\/p>\n

As night-time shooting is done while the birds are sitting still, it can minimise flock disturbance and stress, it says.<\/p>\n

The landscape board says coordination with other agencies and more resources are needed if the trial is to be expanded.<\/p>\n

Rodney Bell, a KI resident, has four grandchildren at the school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey poo all over the yard, then the kids are playing in it,\u201d he says. \u201cI was talking to one father, his boy had come home covered in crap.<\/p>\n

\u201cNear the school, they would drive anyone insane from the sheer noise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bell says when the birds first arrived on the island someone commented: \u201cYou should shoot those two because they\u2019ll bring their families over.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should have listened to him,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of little corellas that have been terrorising the inhabitants of Kangaroo Island have been culled but it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-370462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}