People the 'smoking gun' in foot and mouth disease control, research shows

Natural resource management group Southern Queensland Landscapes has been taking part in a $1.4m FMD simulation project in northern NSW, making use of data taken from prior work in the area by SQ Landscapes officer Darren Marshall, who said the latest research showed the question of control came down to people in the end.

"The smoking gun is the people," he said.

"The power of this research is that landholders can now see how hard it is to eradicate pigs.

"If we get FMD, we're going to have to work a lot harder than we are now.

"What we're doing now feels good, but the crux is getting people to work together."

FMD simulations are being conducted across NSW in each Local Land Services area, asking the question, if foot and mouth disease hits Australia, could it be controlled.

In a point of difference, the Northern Tablelands LLS has teamed up with SQ Landscapes, as well as the NSW Vertebrate Pest Research Unit, 46 private land managers, three National Parks and 12 travelling stock reserves, thanks to the head start Mr Marshall's PhD work offered.

It meant that as well as his research on the ground across 60,000ha at Nullamanna, which collared pigs to watch where they went and where they were most vulnerable in the landscape, there was already a group of people who were familiar with the work and were working together.

"There's also multiple land uses, private land, grazing, cropping, private conservation, national parks and feedlots; so a lot going on there, plus because of the work Darren Marshall and the team from SQ Landscapes have been doing in the area, we already had a semi-engaged community," Mr Tarrant said.

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The original plan was to see if they could achieve local eradication within a 5km zone, but NTLLS project officer for FMD Prevention & Preparedness, Mark Tarrant said eradication without a barrier to minimise the vacuum effect would make it highly unlikely as an achievable goal.

"We've gone for the intensive control program, which is where you go down the numbers path of reducing risk through reducing population numbers; the smaller you get, the less risk," he said.

"But we're going to have to deploy every trick in the play book to make that a reality.

"That is probably the screaming pig for me in this simulation; where ever a land manager is applying pest control it's got to be an integrated pest control; aerial doesn't stop it, on-ground doesn't stop it, it's got to be everything thrown at it in a coordinated and strategic way.

"Historically we've undertaken one-off aerial shooting programs and yielded over 3000 pigs, which is a great result; but concerningly what we've learnt here with this program is there could still be 2000 pigs left in the landscape, which means we've actually had minimal impact," he said.

Following a community engagement meeting last November where landholder consent for on-ground work was obtained, a thermal drone surveyed 10,500ha, which was critical in setting a baseline of pig, deer and goat numbers.

"Then because we knew the core home ranges of pigs on the Nullamanna site we selected one of the travelling stock reserves as the simulated site of the outbreak, applied a 5km radius around that for intensive pest control and a further 10km radius as a buffer," SQ Landscapes' Lachlan Marshall said.

"Feral pigs are social and live in family groups of up to 30 individuals, so when you collar one pig and GPS track it, you know where the other 29 are."

Some 40 traps were set up in the 5km zone in January, and GPS collars put on 20 pigs to map their movements during the six-month simulation, and on February 1 the LLS feral animal shooting team began a seven-day aerial shoot.

That resulted in 833 pigs shot in the first week, 101 fallow deer, 75 feral goats, 31 foxes and three cats.

In the remaining three weeks of February a further 62 pigs were trapped.

When the same manoeuvre was repeated in the first week of March, FAAST killed a further 460 pigs, 65 deer, 126 feral goats, 26 foxes and four feral cats; and another six pigs were trapped following the shoot.

Mr Tarrant said 833 pigs shot in the first week of aerial shooting was quite a high number, given control programs on the site prior to the simulation.

"To shoot more than half of that number of pigs again four weeks later is hugely concerning and that is what I am finding really interesting with this project and we've got so many questions about that," he said.

"Even with the intel we had on the pigs' whereabouts based on the GPS tracking of the collared pigs, our aerial shooters found it difficult to locate the pigs, which shows you they are really good at hiding when they hear a helicopter.

"So we're going to overlay the collared 'Judas' pigs' movements with the route of the helicopter and animate what the pig was doing when the helicopter flew over to learn more about their behaviour and find out how we can maximise our opportunity during an aerial shoot.

"Potentially the numbers in the second shoot may also have been achieved through a vacuum effect where neighbouring pigs are coming into the area because there are no pigs there."

Darren Marshall, the SQ Landscapes Vertebrate Pest & Wildlife Management lead, said the work at Nullamanna would be a world first proof of concept that an FMD outbreak could be managed through the intensive pest control of major disease carriers like pigs, deer and goats, but that it would almost solely depend on everyone, not just some people, "obsessively working together to blast these things out of existence".

"We know that the ecology of a rainforest is hugely complex, but what we have tended to ignore or not think about is the complexity of humans in these scenarios and what my research has found is that you can't save the forest without engaging the humans," he said.

"I'm not sure it is possible to have a pig-free Australia because people are the problem, not the pigs and it's the human dimension that doesn't allow us to implement strategic control at a landscape level because land managers get side tracked on what they think are more important issues as pig populations decline."

He said some people liked shooting pigs and so they made sure they kept a few around.

"Others keep pigs in the landscape because they make money out of them, so in addition to Mark Tarrant's advice that this problem needs every tool in the tool kit to solve, it also needs 100pc uptake and engagement of land managers," he said.

Mr Marshall added that while the concerted attack they were undertaking at Nullamanna sounded like overkill, if FMD came to Australia, people would be wishing more had been done.

He complimented Mark Tarrant and the NTLLS for the initiative they'd taken and said it would be good to see it replicated in Queensland.

"Up north, the strategy will definitely need variations," he said. "The biggest impact we're having now is from aerial shooting, and that won't be as effective in areas with a heavy tree canopy."

Vets are taking the opportunity to collect blood from the pigs that are culled in the NSW project, and Mr Marshall said that while the data was preliminary, they were seeing brucellosis and leptospirosis.

"You'd expect that," he said.

"It's really good to see the work we've been doing for so long getting some traction.

"It's sad that FMD is the reason why, because there are lots of reasons to get rid of feral pigs."

Lachlan Marshall said aerial shooting will continue on the Nullamanna site for the first week of the month, every month until May, with each aerial shoot followed by intensive on-ground trapping and baiting.

"As feral numbers decline we're hoping to really lever off the on-ground trapping, baiting and collars to zero in on where the remaining populations are in the landscape and really target our efforts with the aim of completely eradicating pests within the 5km zone," he said.

"It's really exciting for us as this is the first time anywhere that this level of control has happened. If we are going to have an impact on feral pig populations and the risk they pose as carriers of diseases like foot and mouth, this is the project that is going to show it."