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Given all these issues the authorities felt they had to act and aim to halve the Indian house crow population through poisoning, which began on Tuesday.

The Indian house crow, described by scientists as an invasive pest, is living up to expectations in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa, grabbing food off tourists' plates and bullying other bird species out of town.

In 1947 the house crow reached Kenya and since then its numbers have exploded, thanks to the growing human population and the accompanying mounds of garbage, which provide the birds' main source of food.

The house crow is now common in the Netherlands and east Africa, where it has been blamed for a significant fall in the numbers of several other species of bird.

It is also recommending that the African sacred ibis and the Indian house crow can be killed under a general licence "for the purpose of conserving flora and fauna".