  Recent progress on the nature of short duration gamma-ray bursts has shown
that a fraction of them originate in the local universe. These systems may well
be the result of giant flares from soft gamma-repeaters (highly magnetized
neutron stars commonly known as magnetars). However, if these neutron stars are
formed via the core collapse of massive stars then it would be expected that
the bursts should originate from predominantly young stellar populations, while
correlating the positions of BATSE short bursts with structure in the local
universe reveals a correlation with all galaxy types, including those with
little or no ongoing star formation. This is a natural outcome if, in addition
to magnetars formed via the core collapse of massive stars they also form via
Accretion Induced Collapse following the merger of two white dwarfs, one of
which is magnetic. We investigate this possibility and find that the rate of
magnetar production via WD-WD mergers in the Milky Way is comparable to the
rate of production via core-collapse. However, while the rate of production of
magnetars by core collapse is proportional to the star formation rate, the rate
of production via WD-WD mergers (which have long lifetimes) is proportional to
the stellar mass density, which is concentrated in early-type systems.
Therefore magnetars produced via WD-WD mergers may produce SGR giant flares
which can be identified with early type galaxies. We also comment on the
possibility that this mechanism could produce a fraction of the observed short
duration burst population at higher redshift.
