Ravens have been stealing golf balls from Sydney golf courses for decades. 
They apparently think that they are food (?eggs).
 Australian Ravens (and all corvids) are protected in the Hunter, Sydney and 
Illawarra regions.  Outside of these regions all corvids are unprotected in 
the state.  This is because they are reputed to kill lambs.  While this may 
be true for Australian Ravens I doubt that the smaller corvids are a problem 
and sheep are generally not kept on the New South Wales north coast where we 
do have relict populations of the Forest Raven.  All corvids should be 
protected, at least on the north coast.  Even where corvids are a problem 
they should be protected and licences can then be issued where real problems 
occur.
 The council should have obtained a licence from the Department of 
Environment and Climate Change (DECC)
to destroy the Ravens.  As Russell suggested a non-lethal method of 
addressing the problem would be more satisfactory.
Greg Clancy
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