Australia appoints first feral pig ‘tsar’ as population booms to 24 million
Australia’s most populous state has for the first time appointed a feral pig “tsar” in a battle to eradicate huge numbers of the animals as their population booms after three years of plentiful rain.
Bec Gray, whose official title is State Feral Pig Coordinator, has a budget of A$13 million (£7 million) and aims to eliminate 87,000 wild hogs in New South Wales in the next eight months.
Three years of heavy rainfall in Australia, brought about by the La Niña weather phenomenon, has led to abundant vegetation and food sources for the animals, enabling them to proliferate.
There are now estimated to be about 24 million feral pigs living across nearly 50 per cent of Australia, meaning they are nearly as numerous as humans – the country’s population is 26 million.
The animals cause havoc on agricultural land across the country, destroying expensive equipment and eating crops, and also threaten native species.
The animals arrived in Australia as domestic pigs with the British First Fleet in 1788, before escaping and forming wild populations. They now resemble hulking, hairy wild boar more than pink, smooth-coated farm animals.
Some experts speculate that feral pig numbers have tripled in some areas of New South Wales and neighbouring Victoria in the past few years.
Ms Gray, who has more than a decade of experience in eradicating introduced species, will oversee a programme in which landowners in New South Wales will be trained to keep down the number of feral pigs on their properties.
“There are areas where, historically, feral pigs haven’t been in large numbers and now we’re starting to see an increase,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“There’s no part of the state that hasn’t seen feral pig populations increase over the last couple of years.”
But some farmers said the eight-month effort will not be enough to make a serious dent in the wild pig population.
‘Break the breeding cycle’
David Scilley, a branch chairman of a farmers’ association in New South Wales, said: “There’s a concern among rural communities that this funding is nowhere near enough to deliver a sustained and ongoing impact.”
“While this is a good start, we need to break that breeding cycle, which means taking out 70 per cent of the breeding population per annum. That’s a longer-term commitment than one year’s funding.”
‘Eight-month sugar hit not enough’
Dugald Saunders, the leader of the opposition National Party in New South Wales, also said the scope of the programme was not ambitious enough.
“It simply doesn’t go far enough. An eight-month sugar hit won’t achieve the ongoing coordinated results we need.”
Feral pigs cause tens of millions of dollars’ worth of damage to agriculture, bulldozing through fields, eating crops and ripping up expensive irrigation equipment.
They are also a potent threat to native wildlife – they eat reptiles, amphibians and small mammals and trample streams and rivers that are the habitat of native species.
In tropical areas of Queensland, wild pigs dig up turtle eggs and also feast on the eggs of cassowaries, an endangered giant bird that inhabits the state’s stretches of rainforest.
Pigs even have an effect on climate change. By rooting through soil, they release huge quantities of carbon dioxide.
Shooting from helicopters and using baited traps on the ground are two of the strategies used for killing wild pigs.
“We’re committed to tackling rising feral pig numbers,” said Tara Moriarty, minister for agriculture in New South Wales.
The battle against wild pigs needed to be stepped up, she said, “to ensure as many people as possible are participating in our coordinated control programs and playing their role in tackling rising feral pig numbers”.
It will be a huge challenge – feral pigs can reproduce all year round in good conditions, with sows having two litters of up to 10 piglets each year.
After three years of wet weather brought by La Niña, Australia is expecting warmer, drier conditions to be brought by El Niño conditions.
That is expected to make hunting the pigs easier because the dry weather will force them to congregate around water sources.
