Farmers are reporting a fresh surge in feral pig numbers, prompting a call to escalate funding to fight the state’s feral pig problem.
NSW Farmers President Xavier Martin said with the state budget set to be handed down in just a few weeks’ time, there was a golden opportunity for funding to get feral pigs under control as numbers explode across the state.
“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,” Mr Martin said.
“These pests are bigger than the people trying to control them – and they are costing landholders many thousands of dollars in lost production and control costs that they simply can’t keep up with.
“They’re superspreaders of disease and reproduce at a rate that means we need to cull many millions a year to break the breeding cycle, so we have a fight on our hands that we simply can’t face alone.”
While recent efforts by the Minns Government to support baiting, trapping and aerial shooting of feral pigs had been warmly welcomed by farmers, Mr Martin 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.
“Farmers have been outnumbered, paddocks have been destroyed, and despite our best efforts, no one-man band can get on top of these animals when the numbers are just so wildly out of control.
“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.”
The government needs to put a bounty on ALL FERAL ANIMALS.
Let’s get an overseas market back up and running again with registed harvester, plus a bounty on the smaller animals that are not commercially useful.
.More 1080 baiting grain, and meat baits for non cropping areas.
.Have LLS Bio staff able to enforce land managers to participate in feral animals control, ie fox, rabbits, W dog, pigs.
. Absentee land holders made aware of there responsibility towards land management, and not use land for hunting purposes only, have an appropriate pest animal management plan in place.
Throwing money at the problem isn’t going to make it go away we need real action from government and we need people on the ground.Me being a avid hunter for 40 years I have seen the problem cause to many times they need hunter registrar help cull them and help the cocky try keep theimunder control .If you need help email me it’s cost nothing I have shot for some big properties and have had some geat success you can get my email address from beef central rgs Dave
Ive got my gun license i would like to help with the pig problem .
Please let me know how i can help and how i can find land to go hunt wild pigs??.
Thank you