THOUSANDS of kilometres may separate them, but when it comes to wild dogs, graziers in western Queensland and Western Australia discovered last week that they have a lot in common.
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A group of 10 people from the Upper Gascoyne, Cue, Mt Magnet, Yalgoo, Shark Bay and Kalgoorlie regions spent three days in the Charleville area inspecting the cluster-fencing projects under way at Mungallala and Morven.
They were hosted by South West NRM, which has been instrumental in bringing the plans to manage total grazing pressure into being.
Representing a variety of rangelands and producer organisations, the groups encompassed 51 properties of an average size of 400,000ha.
Despite the huge property size difference, they are experiencing similar disastrous effects from wild dogs in their state.
According to South West NRM resource economist John Grant, the group had told him sheep numbers in one area had declined from 2 million to 10,000 head.
"It's not as easy for them to transfer over to cattle there," he said.
"People are selling up, losing their business to the banks, or finding off-farm income via mines.
"They are baiting every six weeks, so they already have a high level of cooperation.
"They wanted to see what our processes were - both the governance issues and making people accountable - as well as how we managed the funding side."
Ross Wood, the executive officer for the Goldfields/Nullabor Rangelands Biosecurity Association, said the visit had been positive for his members.
"We wanted to try and understand the various processes involved in the collaboration of fencing," he said.
"I used to run a place with 850km of fence so I understand how to build them.
"We needed to know how to get a group to work for a common cause, and manage the money side."
People in his area have already formed the Kalgoorlie Pastoral Alliance, a private company, to build a biosecurity cell.
"We needed confirmation of what we were doing from this trip.
"We were very impressed by the way pastoralists here have come together, and we were impressed with the speed it was progressing at."
He said he was also favourably surprised at the active role South West NRM was taking to assist in getting the projects off the ground.
Mr Wood said the emphasis in his area was on fencing, as people had been down the baiting path for a decade and were now left with no sheep.
"It's a joke - dogs just keep reinfesting us," he said.
"We are exposed on three sides to unmanaged crown land."
They estimate their fence proposal will cost $7.2m and are waiting for their state budget to be brought down to see if it brings news of funding.
One company within the group has already begun experimenting with different types of fence construction to find the most effective design.
Dr Karen Cosgrove, manager of the Sustainable Pastoral Program for WA's Rangelands NRM, put the trip to western Queensland together and said it had been a fabulous opportunity for an information exchange.
While it cost in excess of $20,000, she said it was impossible to put a figure on how much value the visit had provided.
"Groups will be able to be more autonomous now, and have the knowledge within themselves."
SW NRM's John Grant said the visit provided scope for an alliance between the two groups to work jointly on future processes.
"They have similar conditions to us, but this could encourage thinking outside the box," he said.
In a footnote, the biggest eye-opener for the Western Australians was the number of kangaroos in western Queensland, which they all described as "mind-blowing".
