He was once tasked with leading one of the world's largest and most challenging police jurisdictions.
But now former WA police commissioner Karl O'Callaghan has a new assignment — dealing with a growing plague of little corellas spreading across several of the state's regional towns.
The introduced birds, which some are calling "flying cane toads", appear in huge flocks in warmer months and cause damage to parks and infrastructure while annoying locals.
In Bunbury, in WA's South West, Lois Glaser is woken every morning to screeching from outside her window.
"There's so many of them, we're just inundated with these birds at this time of the year," she said
"Instead of having an alarm clock I've got these white birds squawking and squawking … they are very very noisy"
'Flying cane toads'
Chris Litsch and other residents living near the Queens Gardens in Bunbury's city centre have taken it upon themselves to "defend" their properties from the pesky birds, which have ripped leaves off their trees and dug holes in the local park.
"We call them flying cane toads because they don't belong here, they're scaring all the other birds away," he said
"We blow up balloons and they go bang and that scares the corellas off. That works for a while and then they get used to that so then we change tactics to a couple of clapping sticks."
Mr Litsch said something needed to be done.
"They are in plague proportions, and there seems to be getting bigger plagues each year. Culling is a controversial thing and it's a difficult thing to achieve but what else can you do?"
The City of Bunbury has a culling program in place and has set up scare kites in corella hotspots, including at the local croquet club which has had big problems with the birds in recent years.
However, council chief executive Mal Osborne admitted it was "unlikely" it would be possible to rid the city of the birds.
The corellas have cost the City of Bunbury more than $125,000 over the last five years by damaging playgrounds, signage and electrical cables.
Wreaking havoc inland
It's a similar story in the Avon Valley, east of Perth.
York resident Kevin Pyke said the corellas were relentless.
"They just don't go away," he said
"They fly around — smash into the bloody TV aerial — they're just destructive little things."
"The numbers this year are three years as much.. I've tried banging bits of metal together, it's getting to the stage now where they just sit up there and laugh"
"I know what would work, get a couple of shotguns and put the numbers right back … it's only going to get worse."
Northam Shire president Chris Antonio said the council had spent at least $50,000 in the last financial year repairing damage done by the birds.
"Anything to do with antennas, anything to do with rubber, anything to do with the rec centre … I have seen photos of CCTV cameras, so that's a security issue as well," he said.
"Anything they can get their beaks on, they'll damage."
The Shire of Northam has also tried to cull and control the birds but Mr Antonio said it wasn't as simple as just moving the birds along.
"We'll scare them off from Northam and then we'll get a call from Denise in York and she'll say – you just scared them to our patch."
WA top cop takes charge
The state government has brought in former Western Australian former police commissioner Karl O'Callaghan to help fix the problem – a role he joked had similarities to policing.
"You have to deal with pests in both types of organisations," he said.
Mr O'Callaghan, who is head of the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development's newly formed Pest Parrot and Cockatoo Strategy Steering Committee, said it was time to take a statewide approach to corella management.
"One of problems in Western Australia is a lack of a coordinated response," he said
"Every local government has just been going off and doing their own thing – and that just displaces the problem from one town to another."
He said he wanted to look at alternatives to culling the birds.
"We've made the areas attractive for them — there's plenty of food, plenty of water and plenty of places to roost," he said.
"Culling has obviously been a strategy over the years but it's not a long-term solution to the problem. The … solution is really about making regional towns less attractive for them to be in."
The state-wide strategy will look how to deal with several pest birds, including corellas and parrots.
