Call to extend aerial baiting

Calls are being made to allow 1080 baiting via helicopter in National Parks which act as a haven for wild dogs.

By Jeremy Sollars

AERIAL baiting of wild dogs in the region’s national parks has been called for by the Southern Downs Regional Council.
At their September meeting councillors voted in favour of seeking permission for the council to undertake the baiting from Queensland Agriculture Minister Leanne Donaldson and National Parks.
The council has been conducting aerial baiting using 1080-laced meat baits to target wild dogs and foxes on private lands that are inaccessible on foot for the past 12 months.
But the region’s producers have long been vocal about the need to target wild dogs in national parks, arguing that they act as a safe haven for the pests to increase their numbers and launch attacks on neighbouring private farming properties.
While environmental groups have voiced concern about the threat of 1080 to native animals or “non-target uptake” the risk is considered minimal due to the dry consistency of the baits which makes them unattractive to birds and herbivores including marsupials.
Bait sizes are usually made large enough so that small carnivorous mammals cannot eat enough of them to get a fatal dose.
Southern Downs Wild Dog Advisory Committee chairman Clive Smith told the Free Times the “whole eastern boundary” of the Southern Downs region was national park and that the State Government needed to act like any other neighbour in the fight to control dogs.
“Currently baits can be laid within 50 metres on the other side of a national park boundary, but this is not strategic,” Mr Smith said.
“We need to access the remote areas in national parks by helicopter for the program to work.
“We know there is a lot of money being spent on exclusion fencing in western areas but we have a different situation here – the State Government isn’t going to fence off national parks which are their own backyard.
“And fencing doesn’t kill any dogs.”
Mr Smith said producers’ stocking rates were always lower than average if they shared a boundary with a national park, where dogs are provided with a safe haven to breed and food, shelter and water.
He said a breeding pair could produce six to 10 pups every year if left unchecked.
Wild and feral dogs cost the Australian economy more than $66 million every year.
Councillors last month also agreed to the formation of a sub-committee to formulate a new strategic plan for the Southern Downs Wild Dog Management Working Group.
The sub-committee will include Clive Smith, Ben Usher and another member yet to be nominated, along with council officers Craig Magnussen and James Eastwell.
The council has paid out $19,300 in bounties for wild dogs so far in 2016, for a total of 190 adult dogs and six pups.
The current council budget has $125,000 set aside for work on the Wild Dog Barrier Fences in Killarney and Stanthorpe.
The money will be used to replace more than two kilometres of fencing along with paying maintenance contractors, weed control and maintenance of electrified sections of the Stanthorpe fence.