Wollongong City Council will train people in how best to dispose of Indian myna birds, as part of a new program to control the Illawarra's avian enemy No 1.The council receives more complaints about Indian mynas than any other bird, with about 180 calls in the past 18 months."Intelligent and aggressive ... Indian mynas kill the chicks of other birds or destroy their eggs, or build their own nests on top and smother them," the Indian Myna Action website says.Wollongong City Council's brochure calls them "the rats of the sky"."Mynas reduce biodiversity by aggressively chasing out or killing weaker, more timid birds and other animals they see as potential competitors for food," it says.The council has teamed up with the blokes from Corrimal Men's Shed, who are busy making traps to catch the invasive imports.To get hold of a trap, Wollongong residents will first have to attend a council workshop where they will be instructed in the range of tactics to make a backyard less hospitable to mynas - as well as how to dispose of the birds once caught.The three options the council will recommend for euthanasing the birds are a barbiturate injection, gassing with carbon monoxide, and a process called "cervical dislocation of the neck" - otherwise known as wringing the bird's neck.The first two options are less likely to be practised in the backyard, so once birds are caught people can call the council or take the birds to a drop-off place.People will be told how to properly kill the birds, using these methods, at the workshops.The program comes almost a year after a storm of controversy was created when Shellharbour and Shoalhaven councils sanctioned looser do-it-yourself trapping and killing programs.Sensitive about ensuring the birds are disposed of humanely, Wollongong City Council has been more cautious and has involved experts from a pioneering Canberra community-based myna control program to help design its strategy.The workshops will be free and will be conducted fortnightly. They can take 20 people at a time, so residents are encouraged to register as soon as possible. By the time the next workshop is held, the men at the Corrimal Shed will have made another 20 traps.Residents will have to pay $50 for the traps, to cover the cost of making them.Wollongong council's director of planning and environment Andrew Carfield said 80 per cent of backyards in the area had mynas, which also posed a public health risk as they nested in roof spaces and carried lice and mites.Other tactics to disrupt the birds' breeding included not leaving out pet food and scraps in the open, and planting native trees.The Indian myna, native to India and China, was introduced in Australia in 1862 to help control insect pests in market gardens.