PHOTO: Traps are just one tool landowners are using to reduce feral pig pressure. PHOTO: W Waterford
The surging feral pig population continues to create havoc around the region with large areas of newly-sown crop destroyed and livestock attacks on the rise.
Concerns are mounting that funds allocated so far to control the pests will not keep the feral pig population in check under current conditions.
NSW Farmers President Xavier Martin said that farmers warmly welcomed recent efforts by the Minns Government to support baiting, trapping and aerial shooting of feral pigs but warned funding for pig control must be scaled up significantly in this year’s NSW budget to get on top of the problem.
“More than 77,000 pigs have been culled by the state’s Feral Pig Program since October last year – and while this has made a dent in the population, we’ve still got millions of pigs ruining production on our prime agricultural land,” Mr Martin said.
“There’s reports of feral pigs weighing well over 100 kilograms charging through the paddocks, trashing food crops and killing calves and lambs at the drop of a hat.”
Weather conditions continue to favour feral pig breeding and survival.
“The last three or four years, there’s been really good rainfall,” said Jeff Graham Senior Biosecurity Officer at the Local Land Service (LLS).
“Food resources are great at the moment. There’s water everywhere, they don’t actually have to be in one area so they spread out in the country.
“Their natural mortality rate is reduced. A lot more sows are carrying the full litter to maturity.”
Local pig hunter Wylie Waterford said he shot 1,047 within the last month on his family’s property.
Aerial controls have also been done but he thinks there are thousands still on the property. “The choppers don’t get everything.”
He reckons the pigs have so far caused around $100,000 worth of damage.
“You can plant crops one day on 500 acres and roughly 80 percent of that can be wiped out overnight. They’ll put their nose in where the seeds are planted and just dig it all out.”
In addition, aerial controls cost $1,000 an hour and an extra $2 for each shot the hunters use.
“We’ve recently eradicated 250 pigs in six days,” another property owner in Coonamble who wishes to stay anonymous said.
He does not want his name to be publicized because he has had illegal hunters trespass on his property.
He told the Coonamble Times that hunters had heard there were pigs on the property and wanted in on the action.
“They were inebriated and they had guns. It was quite frightening,” the property owner’s wife said.
An aerial control of their property last November resulted in a catch of up to 700 pigs.
“Their breeding has been phenomenal in the last few years, great conditions and there’s lots of babies.”
Mr Graham said the LLS have been using integrated control measure such as “trapping, ground shooting, aerial shooting, and poisoning.”
“All the techniques in the basket are being used,” he said.
“Group control is the best way to go about it. Having multiple landholders or stakeholders doing the control at the same time is more beneficial for everybody.”
Mr Waterford said there is some support from the government to keep feral pig numbers under control but “not near enough to cover it.”
Mr Martin is advocating for more funding in the next NSW government budget in June to reduce the feral pig population.
“If we want to fend off these pests for good, we need to see some serious funding for feral pig control in the NSW budget this June – or else we simply don’t stand a chance.”