When Mynahs and Umdoni trees caused a stink in Pinetown

THE initial shock has worn off, but to regularly see our butchered Umdoni trees in Crompton Street is saddening and a stark reminder of the damage unsupervised, unskilled labour can wrought.It is hoped that they were “unsupervised”, because if this is what happens under the supervision of trained horticulturists, then heaven help us and our environment.

The Umdoni trees have been a feature of Pinetown for decades, particularly those outside the library and in Hill Street. They were regularly featured at council meetings too, and not because they were  sheltering criminals.

The problem with the trees was that they harboured some feathered problems, the Indian Mynahs which gathered in huge flocks in the evening. The racket of their roosting had to be heard to be believed. But it was not the noise which got some councillors hot under the collar. It was the droppings which plastered the pavement, cars and the paving of Pinetown’s newly converted Hill Street “mall” which caused a stink in council.

It was one of the pet issues of councillor Jock Bruce, now departed. When this little Scotsman began tugging on his right earlobe, those present knew that they were in for a barrage of complaint, and the accent would become thicker the angrier he became.

The Mynahs became a hot topic in Pinetown and the solutions put forward included poison, shooting them, using gas, and a company which specialised in the extermination of vermin.

The environmentalists and bunny huggers waded in with the environmentalists of the consensus that the Mynahs were invasive and chased away wild birds, while the bunny huggers were aghast that anyone could possibly think of killing those sweet little birds.

A temporary solution was using a high powered hose to blast the excrement off the paving every morning

I cannot remember exactly what the final solution was, or if there was a solution at all. The mynah population appears to be a lot smaller than it was in the 80s and perhaps there was some secret culling of the pests, but the vacant branches of our street trees left by the Mynahs were soon taken over by red winged Starlings. Just as noisy and just as messy.

Through all this high drama in Pinetown council, there was never once the suggestion that the trees be cut down. And Hill Street’s plastered paving? I don’t think anyone notices. The “mall” is so littered and filthy that a little bird poo is not going to change the ambience.

As a junior reporter on this newspaper and coming from a city which took pride in its heritage, I would often write scathing things about how Pinetown took little cognizance of its history.

A bit fed up with me, the then town clerk, Andrew Ferguson, invited me on a drive to point out the beauty of the town, the view from Cowies Hill and other delights, but most of all the hundreds of trees in the streets and in gardens which gave the town its pretty image. (It didn’t change my opinion that Pinetown didn’t value its heritage).

How sad that we are now intent on cutting down as many of our treasures as we possibly can, either by homeowners covering everything living in concrete and tar, or the local authorities who are obviously in need of training. What these chainsaw fanatics fail to realise is that our lives depend on trees and the more hard surfaces we create the more severe will be the floods and extreme weather which we are beginning to experience.

Become a tree hugger, it will change your life.