Agricultural
9 March, 2026
Corella Carnage around Clifton
Flocks of the bird have been causing damage to crops and infrastructure around Clifton, but just how much of a pest are they?
It’s not news that corellas are pests.
Swarms of them descend on fields of sorghum or sunflowers and leave destruction in their wake.
Wherever you see the white, speckled mass on the horizon, car horns and warning shots will follow.
It’s a pest that comes seasonally, as the sorghum and sunflowers grow tall.
There have been calls since as far back as 2014 to have the birds culled in the State, due to the damage they cause.
The Department of Rural Sciences estimates that birds overall, cause an estimated $300 million in damage to horticultural crops alone.
Tom Bazley, from Mt. Molar, roughly estimates the little corella will destroy at least 5 per cent of his family’s sunflower and sorghum crops.
Beyond crops they can damage irrigation pipes and electrical wiring.
In South Australia they’ve been recorded displacing honeyeater populations which pollinate regional orchards.
Methods of mitigating the avian nuisances are limited: nets, barriers, loud noises, scare cannons.
But so far the only lethal mitigation available to growers is a Damage Mitigation Permit (DMP.)
A DMP would need to be applied for every time.
Which can be done, but only after proving that two non-lethal methods of deterrence have proved unsuccessful.
But like Dr. Meg Edwards, lecturer of wildlife management at The University of Southern Queensland told The Clifton Courier, the birds are smart.
“They’re quite smart animals, they will often just come back after a noise disturbs them.”
The main damage Dr. Edwards says was to, but not limited to, crops, particularly sunflowers and sorghum.
“A part of the issue is that they’re finding these easy food sources in fields of crops, after losing much of their own habitat and food sources,” she said.
Dr. Edwards describes it as a balancing act, between looking after a native species, and supporting producers.
One strategy Dr. Edwards saw working was the planting of a sacrificial crop of say sunflowers, and leaving that for the birds to eat.
But this is far from perfect.
The corella issue is a tricky one, partly because of their protected status as a native species.
Also because of how smart the birds are.
In Victoria, north of Ballarat, a bird of prey rehabilitation park and Federation University have teamed up to try and find a creative solution.
Corella’s natural predators are raptors and other large birds of prey.
What Dr. Rob Wallis of Federation University and Full Flight Birds of Prey Director Graeme Coles devised was to use raptors and other birds of prey to deter corellas and other nuisance birds from crops and other spaces where the birds were causing damage.
The benefit of this technique is that it co-opts the birds’ natural predators and uses them as a deterrent.
It is in this way an ethical and sustainable way of warding off corellas. The need for such a solution goes to show how tricky the problem is.
Morning or afternoon, if a flock comes over, the car horns start blaring. Farmers are stuck trying to ward off persistent flocks of corellas picking apart their crops. But what is also needed is proper data on how much damage is being done.
Neither the Federal Department of Primary Industries nor the State Department of Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation can say, which hinders attempts to get a full scope of the damage being done by flocks of little corellas.
The corella question is a classic human-wildlife interaction.
Caused by a strain on their food source and habitat they turn to the ready supply to ours that are growing outside of town.
The solutions are not going to be straight forward.
But there is a lesson to be learnt in the work done in Miners Rest, Victoria with their raptors; there are natural processes and systems within which wildlife already live.
Whatever the solution, what is certain is that corellas are going to be flying around and settling, like a quick bloom of flowers on dead branches, for a while yet.
