Queensland may have thrown in the towel in its wars with the cane toad, the rabbit and the crown-of-thorns starfish, but it may not be too late for the state government to curtail the incursions of another rapacious foreigner, the Indian miner. And it would be something like poetic justice if, after years of well-funded campaigning, protesting and lobbying, the most potent weapon in the anti-Adani arsenal turned out to be another, rather less ubiquitous bird.