I became aware of the Grafton council's trapping program when it was mentioned in a letter to The Herald a week ago, and subsequently a letter writer who has one of the council's traps told how he'd been able to keep myna numbers down in his immediate area at Wooli. That fellow, Bruce Leyshon, caught seven mynas in 2006, 16 in 2007 and 45 last year, and while that suggests that the myna population at his Wooli home is increasing, the reality is that he's getting better at the trapping. The trick is, Mr Leyshon tells me, to set the trap and to bait it with pet food before dawn and to remove (and dispose of) the trapped mynas after dark. Oh, and to keep a couple of myna birds as call birds.

That's where I went wrong with my trap, which I made myself (Google "pee gee's myna trap") and which has caught only one myna. The problem is that a myna-hating friend became so excited on seeing the trapped myna that he immediately took it from the trap as a couple of dozen sqawking mynas watched and, as Mr Leyshon puts it, dislocated its neck. Since that moment of frenzy not a single myna has expressed an interest in the pet food in the trap.

There are all manner of questions here. Does protecting native birdlife from the murderous myna justify an open season on the bird? Are we not at risk of being in the same field, figuratively, as the shooters who want to sate their blood lust in our national parks? And should councils in the Hunter take up the Clarence Valley traps program?