Features

The massive number of feral animals that arrived in the first hundred years of European settlement have permanently and drastically altered the Australian environment, introduced disease, caused land degradation and are implicated in the extinction of most of the 27 mammals in NSW.

Today, feral animal and plants are the second greatest international and national threat to biodiversity after habitat destruction such as land clearing. In some parts of NSW feral species are now the greatest threat. If government begins to limit land clearing, ferals will be the biggest environmental threat to even more areas of the state.

In recent months property owners adjacent to Kosciuszko National Park have reported attacks by wild dogs on their sheep
Photo: Courtesy NPWS

Tim Low in Feral Future shows just how many exotics we have brought into Australia, including 2,700 exotic plants, since 1780. Some ferals are already dominating and displacing the native plants and animals; other ‘sleepers’ are here, but have not yet reached massive numbers.

The Bureau of Rural Sciences has recently identified about 80 introduced species of vertebrate pests in Australia. With inadequate quarantine regulations and a focus on agricultural needs above environmental concerns, this is likely to increase. Pet owners also demand more exotic companions, and despite some rules regulating the import of new animals, illegal animal smuggling will see new potential pests arriving in Australia.

Within NSW, the National Parks and Wildlife Service conducts programs on ten of the introduced vertebrate pests and one invertebrate species. These are:

There are others that require attention, including cattle. and introduced fish such as carp and trout. Anachronistic groups such as Acclimatisation Societies are still deliberately introducing some of these species into national parks and other areas.

Unfortunately, Government responses to feral animals occur long after there is a problem. This then requires massive long-term resources, which are rarely forthcoming. Solutions reduce numbers for a time, only to see feral animal populations thrive again as attention is diverted elsewhere.

In recent months, landholders have reported to the media and their local members wild dog attacks on sheep on properties adjacent to Kosciuszko National Park near Jindabyne. This has resulted in a major diversion of effort to these areas. The Rural Lands Protection Board has dropped thousands of 1080-laced baits from the air on properties along more than 100km of the national park perimeter. Aerial baiting is justifiably banned within the national park due to the effect on ‘non-target species’ – native animals such as the Eastern quoll that readily eat the baits. Dingos – some pure-bred – are also poisoned.

Only now are detailed strategies and plans being developed for some of the more serious environmental threats imposed by feral animals. Threatened species legislation at State and Commonwealth levels provides a process of nomination and listing of ‘key threatening processes’ and the preparation of binding ‘threat abatement plans’. This aims to deal with the primary threats to the long-term survival of a number of threatened species rather than focusing on recovering individual threatened species or endangered ecological communities.

Already goats, rabbits, cats, foxes and pigs are listed on key threatening process lists at a NSW or National level. Further listings are in the pipeline. Threat abatement plans have been approved at the national level for predation by feral cats, competition and land degradation by feral rabbits, competition and land degradation by feral goats and predation by European red fox. The NSW Environment Minister released the draft threat abatement plan for predation by European red fox on 4 July 2001, accompanied by $511,000 in new funding. But this will only scratch the surface in limiting the environment damage caused by one of Australia’s most successful feral invaders.

Cooperation between the National Parks and Wildlife Service which oversees wildlife laws, land managers and those that have a statutory responsibility for controlling feral animals including Rural Lands Protection Boards (RLPB) and the NSW Department of Agriculture, is essential.

Feral animals don’t merely cause environmental problems in national parks. The farming community also benefits in the reduction in feral animal numbers due to decreased stock loss and reduced land degradation and transmission of diseases. A recent survey of landholders in the mid-north coast conducted by the RLPB and the NPWS drew valuable information on the location of key feral animals and susceptible native animals that assisted with the targeting of resources in future control programs.

Conservationists have also identified a need for an increased focus on feral issues and are working to set up a new national non-government organisation to focus on animal and plant pests. This will be launched in the next few months in order to give a new national profile to the issue.

Clearly more needs to be done. What is required is greater cooperation and strategic targeting of feral animal control and eradication programs across all tenures. This will require substantial resources and close working relationships, especially with landholders and community volunteers, something that is just starting to occur. Rapid response plans and teams are needed to quickly remove new feral or ferals occurring in new areas. Otherwise bureaucratic inertia will mean on-ground action is years too late.

Without a strong, well-planned effort against feral animals, our remaining native bushland will merely become a zoo to the introduced guests from around the world.

• Linking already successful tree-planting and bush regeneration programs with long-term ecosystem re-establishment that includes re-introducing native animals and controlling feral animals

• Managing agriculture in the context of important natural values that it operates within

• Exploring ideas that seek total elimination of feral animals rather than control

• Ensuring feral animal control programs don’t become self-limiting due to commercial pressures