A decade ago, sheep graziers in Queensland's south west and central west were struggling to sleep at night, knowing that in the morning they would drive around and see more of their ewes and lambs lying dead or maimed from wild dog attacks.
Despite one of the longest man-made structures in the world, the Dingo Barrier Fence, having stood in the landscape as a symbol of defiance against the predator for decades, wild dogs were increasing in number every year.
Years earlier, in 1983, the Bjelke-Petersen government was persuaded to do away with boundary fencing legislation that mandated that within the confines of the barrier fence, leases couldn't be renewed unless the property boundary was fenced to rabbit-proof standard.
Thanks to a wool industry downturn, graziers were bulldozing their netting fences, turning to cattle production and becoming less prepared to participate in wild dog control programs or to pay fence precepts.
By the beginning of this decade sheep producers were no longer able to rely on broad-scale baiting campaigns to protect their flocks, and shooting, trapping and guardian animals weren't plugging the gaps across the thousands of hectares of rangelands and scrub country.
Tambo grazier Andrew Martin remembers the personal anguish well, and the impact it was having on communities.
"In 2009 we were living at Toolmaree and we'd tried everything," he said.
"We'd raised Maremma pups to discover only 50 per cent of them worked and the others were helping kill our sheep.
"We increased donkey numbers and they were successful enough to hurt the marauding Maremmas, and alpacas weren't a fail but they weren't an outstanding success either."
He and his wife Louise and family moved to the west of Tambo in December 2012 and shot 137 wild dogs in the next 12 months.
The pressure on governments and councils to do something was intense
- Tambo grazier Andrew Martin
It was no wonder - between 2011 and 2015 western Queensland's population dropped by 12.5pc as the region experienced a 75pc drop in sheep numbers.
Coupled with intensifying drought conditions, millions of dollars worth of livestock were being lost. People began to feel that there was little choice for survival as sheep and wool growers other than to go back in time and rebuild the predator-proof boundary fences.
By late 2013, a feasibility study into a multi-shire check fence had been released; by mid-2014 state Agriculture Minister John McVeigh had convened an urgent meeting at Longreach to thrash out ways to spend a $5.6m federal funding windfall, and the federal Member for Maranoa, Bruce Scott was calling for the state to "fund the fence" with matching amounts of money.
South West NRM had also begun talking about Collaborative Area Management with graziers in the Morven region in 2013, and the prototype for what has become a common sight began rolling out.
By 2016, thanks to funding announcements, a partnership between local governments in the south and central west and state and federal government, known as the Queensland Feral Pest Initiative was born and the 1.5-metre-high cluster fences began rolling out.
At the end of the second phase in 2017, almost 7000km of exclusion fencing built on 423 properties in priority sheep-growing areas had been constructed, with 75pc of the cost paid for by landholders. In the central west, this exceeded $18 million.
Alongside this the Longreach Regional Council borrowed $18m for a bold exclusion fencing scheme for the 63 ratepayers expressing an interest, and fences are now being constructed in shires in the state's east and north, in Balonne, Goondiwindi and Flinders.
Government funds were a catalyst and have been described as life-changing for many of the state's small communities.
For example, 25 years earlier Queensland's south west, including Paroo, Quilpie and Murweh shires, hosted 3 million sheep. Prior to the fences going up there were less than 200,000 left.
In the central west, Longreach's Sam Coxon said that while they had received less than half their average rainfall in 2017, they were going forward because of the increased lambing percentages they were recording.
"We can start producing an income now," he said.
And that is the ultimate aim, not just to protect lambs but to be a catalyst for achieving improvements in the profitability of regional businesses, both rural and non-rural, ensuring more stable communities, plus better environmental and biosecurity control.
Fences may also defer producers going into drought by months or even years.