Police in the northern New South Wales town of Casino have denied they planned to deploy specially trained officers to shoot and kill magpies, contrary to media reports.
On Friday the Northern Star reported that elite police officers would descend on the town to shoot local magpies which have been deemed too dangerous to live.
According to quotes attributed to acting sergeant David Henderson, police “specially trained to euthanise animals as painlessly and quickly as possible” were to be brought in.
But NSW Police issued a statement in the afternoon saying “there is no proposed magpie cull in Casino or anywhere in the Richmond police district”.
Local councillor Jill Lyons confirmed there were no plans, and said she was glad it had not come to such measures.
“No one is aware of extra police coming into the area,” she said. “No police have been called in to shoot anything in the Richmond valley this season.
“As a resident of Richmond valley I can say I am totally against any method of police coming in and shooting a magpie. I’ve been swooped myself and there is no way a magpie deserves to die just because it is doing the very job it is designed to do, which is safeguard its young.
“We’re causing so much harm to the environment as it is,” Lyons said. “Why do we think we have the right to do this?”
Three instances of magpie swooping have been recorded in Casino in the past months by the Magpie Alert site. On 2 August a magpie was reported to have swooped children at a park near Light street; on 22 August a user reported a “really aggressive bird” while walking on Barker Street; and on 5 September a jogger on Centre Street recorded that they had watched a magpie attack a cycling postie, saying “watched it swoop the postman lmao”.
In September 2018, according to the Northern Star, plainclothes officers shot and killed a magpie that attacked an elderly woman at a shopping centre in nearby Lismore.
The 70-year old woman injured her knee and was treated by paramedics after the magpie swooped.
An hour later, two officers dressed in shorts and T-shirts arrived at the centre and shot the magpie, the paper reported. A witness told the newspaper she was “unable to sleep that night” because she was so shocked by the incident and kept “replaying it in her mind”.
Last month the Hills Shire council in Sydney authorised the shooting of a “particularly aggressive magpie” that had allegedly swooped and injured people for years.
Lyons said the council had extensive non-lethal methods to keep the community safe from magpie attacks.
“Council puts a lot of signs up where there are magpies acting more aggressively to the community,” she said.
“I don’t think it has been worse than any other season. I haven’t been swooped yet, so for me it’s a good season.”
The magpie was voted bird of the year in the 2017 Guardian/Birdlife Australia poll. Voting in the 2019 poll begins on 28 October.
