A GROUP of Roma landholders who participated in a co-ordinated feral pig control program late last year are keen to spread the word about the success of the project.
The program used grain baited with 1080 and killed an estimated 300 feral pigs in two nights, after 10 nights of pre-feeding, on a property about 15km south of Roma.
The work was carried out by Tom Garrett and Brendan Latimer from the Roma office of the Queensland Murray-Darling Committee (QMDC), who together with the Maranoa Regional Council are offering assistance to groups of landholders who have identified large populations of feral pigs in their districts.
Mr Garrett said the key to the success lay in pre-feeding at points where the pigs were padding onto cultivation to feed on wheat stubble.
"We identified where they were walking onto the cultivation and set up six sites where we pre-fed the pigs barley and wheat for 10 nights," he said.
"We had thermal-imaging cameras stationed on each of the feeding stations so that we could count how many pigs were coming onto the cultivation to feed at night.
"The grain was laid out in rows ... a couple of feet apart because pigs like plenty of space from each other when they are feeding, and that way you won't get a few dominant pigs that keep others away."
On the 11th night, the feed was replaced with grain baited with 1080, and over the next two nights, 540kg of poisoned grain was used at the six feeding sites. With the help of the cameras, Mr Garrett estimated more than 300 pigs died after eating baited grain.
The result impressed landholder Scott Arthur, Richmond Downs, Roma.
"You could smell dead pigs for weeks in that area, and driving besside the cultivation a day or so after the baiting, there were just dead pigs everywhere," he said.
"We run a prime lamb operation and feral pigs can have a massive impact on our lambing percentages, so we were really pleased to see this program work so well.
"Working with your neighbours definitely helps you achieve better outcomes on these sort of projects."
With funding from state and federal governments, QMDC has run similar co-ordinated feral pig control programs in about 20 districts across southern Queensland.
Penelope Arthur
Journalist for Queensland Country Life at Roma.
Journalist for Queensland Country Life at Roma.
