The Otago Regional Council's season for rook control operations will start next month.
The pest birds were introduced to New Zealand in the late 1800s to control insects, but have been devastating to cereal and grass crops.
Council biosecurity compliance team leader Richard Lord said the council believed "with confidence" there were now fewer than 40 rooks Otago-wide, and there was no longer a breeding population in the region.
There could be "considerably less" than 40, but it was difficult to determine the number exactly, he said.
No chicks or nests had been found since 2015.
The goal was to eradicate them from the region, and the council believed this was achievable, Mr Lord said.
"It may be just due to the ageing population - they may just die out naturally - but we'll certainly control the ones we can."
Rooks were initially established in the Maniototo, Strath Taieri and South Otago.
The main methods of control are poison from ground baiting and poisoning nests using an operator suspended from a helicopter.
Occasionally they would be shot.
The use of helicopter-based poisoning dramatically impacted the Otago rook population when the method began to be used in 1996.
"We still require the community to report any sightings of rooks and the ORC annual programme continues with advertising and site monitoring," Mr Lord said.
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Rooks being members of the Corvid family have a higher brain mass per body mass than most other living organisms......In my experience arable farming in UK when it is perceived they were eating newly drilled grain seeds it was proven by photographical research they were actually turning over pebbles and other minute ground debris to find insects and the like.
The ORC need a good hurry up from the ratepayers that fund their miserable misinformed existence...Where is Michael Laws when we need him?
They can start on the Magpies next and eliminate them as well.
A victory for mankind! What's shall we kill next? Cats? Blackbirds? Hedgehogs? Green/chaf/goldfinch? Oh how about those pesky starlings? They cost mankind a huge amount of money! What about some of those Aussie pests, like eastern rosellas, magpies, myna, coot and black swans? Maybe something more exoctic like California quail, Canada geese, the German little owl? No! Something easier maybe, like sparrows, thrushs, mallards, rock pigeon, yellow heads and yellow hammers. Prefer fish? Then may I suggest the introduced preditor, trout! Mammals more your thing? Then there are dogs, rabbits, rodents, musrelids, macropods, hares, wild pigs, feral goats, wild boar, various wild deer, chamois, thar, opossum, a whole heap of furry pets and let's not forget the 6.5 million dairy cows, 27.5 million sheep, .85 million deer, 3.5 million beef cattle and all the farmed goats, pigs, alpacas etc.
My suggestion is we should concentrate on the biggest pest of all, mankind itself! Roll on pest free NZ!
Oh! And don't even get me started on all the introduced insects, invertebrates and plants!