Hunting in some NSW National Parks

[perfectlydark]

Yeah hunting brumbies will probably go down with the public as well as hunting whales

[Pteropus]

The National Parks to be used in the hunting trial have been named:
Cocopara Nature Reserve near Griffith; Yathong Nature Reserve and Nombinnie Nature Reserve and state conservation area near Cobar; Murrumbidgee Valley National Park and state conservation area near Balranald; Goonoo National Park and state conservation area and Coolbaggie Nature Reserve near Dubbo; Gundabooka National Park and state conservation area near Bourke and Woomargama National Park near Albury

Read more -> http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/national-park ... 2wkjp.html

[perfectlydark]

Sorry back to brumbies, only saw for the first time 2 weeks ago and I have to say, majestic creatures

[Wollemi]

Sorry back to brumbies, only saw for the first time 2 weeks ago and I have to say, majestic creatures

Majestic. adj. Having or showing lofty dignity or nobility; stately. Hence I would say that plains of tussock, and billy buttons, whether individual plants or grouped - are also majestic. http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-b ... =Craspedia

[photohiker]

Sorry back to brumbies, only saw for the first time 2 weeks ago and I have to say, majestic creatures

We saw some a couple of weeks ago near the Copley railway crossing.



Best I have seen was about 30 of them thundering through camp at Muloorina Bore in the outback.

[maddog]

The National Parks to be used in the hunting trial have been named:
Cocopara Nature Reserve near Griffith; Yathong Nature Reserve and Nombinnie Nature Reserve and state conservation area near Cobar; Murrumbidgee Valley National Park and state conservation area near Balranald; Goonoo National Park and state conservation area and Coolbaggie Nature Reserve near Dubbo; Gundabooka National Park and state conservation area near Bourke and Woomargama National Park near Albury

Read more -> http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/national-park ... 2wkjp.html

Pteropus,

The thread you started is one of the best on the subject I have come across, and a credit to this site. All considered, the National Parks supplementary pest management program is starting to look quite reasonable. I find this, from the environment minister, particularly reassuring:

Ms Parker said the timing of the call for volunteer shooters would be based on ''need and the advice'' of the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

The review of the trial program in 2016 will also be interesting. More information at:

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/pestsweeds/spc.htm

Cheers

[wearthefoxhat]

Well this gets interesting.

Is Steve Dunn tied in with Obeid's corruption fiasco? Well he is now subject to an enquiry..
Politics is a dirty business hey.
If Dunn is found to have been illegally involved with Obeid (and it looks likely) What credibility do we give a crook in Australia.. not to mention the Dunn report..

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/department-he ... 2wav0.html

[maddog]

G'day Fox-hat,

Sounds like old news. The situation in NSW with Obeid and the great patron of the now defunct Game-Council, Ian McDonald, has been likened to the Rum Corps. The issue of Dunn's relationship with Obeid was touched upon in this thread some time ago:

viewtopic.php?f=36&t=10020&p=168976&hilit=obeid#p168976

Whats new, is the most recent edition of Wildlife Research, featuring a paper on the control of feral deer in forests. Unsurprisingly Forsyth et al. observed a 'significant negative relationship' in deer numbers subject to helicopter based shooting. Interestingly, 'no significant relationship' was found in deer populations subject to ground based hunting. Who would have thought, huh?

http://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/WR13016.htm

Cheers

[wearthefoxhat]

Helicopters and 1080 are very effective control there is no question about that but they still never eradicate deer out of areas completely.

I would like to see this study in its entirety. I would hope it was done indiscriminately.
How close were the zones etc? Did the helicopter method push deer into the ground hunting area for example. What other contributing factors may have contributed to the results? Fires perhaps... How much hunting was done? was it recreational or professional? What is the location of these forests.

One plus for the ground based hunting is deer populations never increased. This is significant in my view. Over an 8 year period deer numbers would significantly increase if no check was in place especially in NZ where there are no predators and an abundance of highly palatable food.
NZ and Australia are vastly different in terrain with Australia being much easier to hunt at ground level due to mostly sparse tree cover. NZ bush on the other hand by comparison is generally much thicker and less penetrable.. a distinct disadvantage to ground based hunters...
Could we apply the same study to Australia? In my opinion no...
IMO if the same study was done in Australia we would see different results.

[perfectlydark]

Just a random observation..how do we as a species manage to make hundreds of other species extinct even with efforts to protect them, yet at the same time fail to eradicate pest species from specific areas despite our best efforts to kill them off..

[maddog]

Fox-hat

The sites were selected as paired areas of 3600ha, each selected as being as similar as possible in geology, physical environments and forest composition. Two of the sites were on the North Island (Waihaha - ground shooting and Waiotaka - aerial), and one on the South Island (Ruataniwha - ground and aerial). Each site was paired into a control and non-control area, determined by a flip of a coin, and separated by a buffer equal to or greater than 4km, 1km and 5km respectively. The study was conducted over a period of 8 years with population density measured by using a Faecal Pellet Index (FPI) as a proxy.

The movement of deer between non-control and control sites was likely. However site separation and the eight year period over which the study was conducted make it unlikely the FPI was influenced by the movement of animals spooked by helicopters, allowing this concern to be dismissed (one may safely presume the collection of faecal pellets and shooting were not conducted at the same time). Though the authors note that fire has been shown to reduce deer numbers in south-eastern Australia, it was not considered a factor in the current study and this objection can likewise be disregarded.

The impact of aerial and ground based shooting was assessed on the basis of an assumed background of recreational and commercial hunting at all control sites. The rationale was that these hunters are not required to report harvests, so their impact could not be reliably measured. It is worth noting that reliable counting will take place under the NSW 'Supplementary Pest Control' program, providing valuable information to inform future policy. The relative contribution recreational hunters make to overall control efforts will be verifiable, in contrast to the rubbery figures contrived by the Game-Council.

Finally, contrary to your claim that the results from the study are inapplicable to Australia (heavy vegetation places ground hunters at a relative disadvantage), the opposite is more generally accepted. Aerial culling is considered most effective in grassland and light scrub, which provide ample canopy openings, while heavy vegetation cover limits aerial visibility giving ground hunters equipped with indicator dogs a comparative advantage. The authors suggest helicopter shooting may be more effective than previously thought in many forests, including those with heavy vegetation cover. It would be reasonable to assume the same would apply in Australia.

Cheers

[wearthefoxhat]

There is no argument Heli culling is effective. The debate is whether ground base hunting is ineffective and as that report shows it is effective for the very fact that the deer population never grew as it would most certainly grow if left unchecked.
As ground based hunting has always claimed to contribute to control (not total control) this report backs that up...no question..

You claim the game council figures are rubbery which is your opinion based on what facts?

I would suggest the GC figures are grossly understated. When a hunter finds a good area he hardly shouts it out to the rest of the world even though on State land he is obligated to report kills.
As for kills on private land I would say only a small fraction of kills would be reported as you are not obligated to do so..

So rubbery figures perhaps but to the other side is more probable.

"(heavy vegetation places ground hunters at a relative disadvantage), the opposite is more generally accepted."

accepted by who?

You will not find a hunter alive that would agree with this. Thick vegetation reduces visibility and accessibility. Reducing your ability to locate game.

going back to the beginning of your post you said

"Each site was paired into a control and non-control area, determined by a flip of a coin, and separated by a buffer equal to or greater than 4km, 1km and 5km respectively."

There is a problem right there. these buffer zones should have been much greater. I will give you an example of a deer (recently deceased as we found her) we see on a property who has been knick named "old blue tag" She was an escapee from a farm around 13 years ago and was estimated to be 15 years old. Her range was at least 11 km by sightings from locals in the area. Deer will travel especially when pressured!
How can they say deer weren't pushed by being pressured by helicopters and moved into ground based shooting areas where the droppings were counted...
This study has some major flaws already... If they were 20 or 30 kms apart you might give it some credibility..

[maddog]

Fox-hat,

I agree that the Game-Council self-reporting mechanism was a weakness in the old system. With no way to verify accuracy, the obvious problem was that it could be manipulated up or down depending on what volunteers thought best. Many may have bragged, some sensed a broader political interest in exaggerating numbers, a few may have concealed a favourite hunting ground, while others may have lacked motivation to report. Either way, up or down, the figures derived from such a mechanism cannot be considered anything but rubbery. As noted, the current program has addressed this deficiency.

I also agree that thick vegetation decreases visibility. It decreases visibility from the air and the ground (for hunters and walkers alike). Lethargy is no doubt one motivation attracting American trophy hunters to tame wildlife as game, conveniently enclosed within theme park surrounds. But it is not the ease, but the comparative advantage that is important here.

Ground based hunters, guided by indicator dogs, are thought to have a comparative advantage over aerial methods where vegetation cover is thick. Whereas aerial shooters have a considerable advantage over vast expanses of open country where the quarry has nowhere to hide, reducing both the tyranny of distance and difficulty of rough terrain. The authors do not suggest otherwise, but propose that helicopter based shooting may have more application than previously assumed:

In contrast to ground-based hunting, our study indicated that increasing helicopter-based hunting would lead to decreased deer abundance…Helicopter-based hunting is considered highly effective in grassland and scrubland habitats…our study indicated that helicopter-based hunting may be more effective than ground-based hunting in many forests.

As previously noted, the authors acknowledge the likelihood of deer movement across the landscape. A 20km buffer (or perhaps more sensibly increasing the size of the trial area), would have had the disadvantage of increasing differences between the control and non-control areas (geological, physical, and forest composition), which the designers attempted to minimise.

You claim inadequate design distorted results by failing to adequately account for deer migration. But It is unclear what benefit you believe an enlarged buffer would make to the veracity of the study. The authors cite a Norwegian example where deer migrated over a distance of 37km, but such migration consisted of young males leaving areas of high density and settling in areas of lower density, not the other way around. In the absence of extensive fencing, a larger buffer zone neither prevents the possibility of a stressed target moving out of the control zone, or immigrants seeking a better life in newly vacated territory.

The fact that the study was conducted over eight years is sufficient to reduce the transitory impact of emigration you allege. To demand anything less than absolute isolation from an ecological study is clearly unreasonable. Remember the purpose of the study, not to track the movement of stressed quarry, but to measure the efficacy of control methods by assessing impact on deer density, measured by a Faecal Pellet Index. The results of which indicated:

FPI was significantly reduced by helicopter-based hunting, with a significant negative relationship observed between helicopter-based hunting effort and change in FPI. In contrast, there was no significant relationship between ground-based hunting effort and change in FPI.

Cheers

[Turfa]

Some interesting academic arguments, but the various hunting forums give a better idea of the motivations for these debates............

"Originally Posted by wearthefoxhat
Hmmm..the National parks gig is hardly hunting IMO. More an organised cull.. The thought of going for a hunt with a stranger holding your hand is crap.
Rumours are you can't take your meat out either..."

As has been commented before, the 'conservation ideals' pushed by most hunters in this debate are just a PR exercise. Recreational hunting will always be compromised as a control measure by the inescapable fact that the hunters will always want to maintain good stocks of their chosen game animals. The same thread in which the above post appeared, had hunters commenting on the benefits of the recent hiatus in hunting on public land.......

"The upside for hunters is the feral population have had a nice reprieve..
The pigs especially have been enjoying and multiplying in this down time lol..".

Hardly the opinion of someone who truly wants to see ferals eliminated from our public land........

[sambar358]

Maddog....you make some interesting comments but don't discount the likelyhood of those involved in aerial culling "fudging the figures" as you've implied recreational hunters under the NSW GC program could be guilty of. I know a number of property owners in the New England area of NSW who have had occasional NSW PD-Board aerial shoots on theirs and nearby properties mainly for deer,goats and pigs and there has been a constant for each one of these efforts.....lots of gunfire but very few bodies left as evidence of the effectiveness of the operation....yet they all claim high kill tallies on their feedback to these property owners. So for aerial shooting.....do shots fired equate to critters killed ? With these shoots anyway....it seems they do ! Two can certainly play the "fudging figures game" I assure you. Do govt. funded aerial shooting exercises have some independant observer from Parks or some other Govt agency in the back of the helo verifying kills....I think not.

I'd also like to make comment on a quote of yours from an earlier post : "the authors note that fire has been shown to reduce deer numbers in south-eastern Australia"....false and quite the opposite actually. You'd be aware that here in Vic we've had 10 years of pretty horrific summer wildfires that have decimated much of the forests in the central and east of the state and into SE NSW. All these areas are populated by sambar deer and despite much of this bush being burnt 2 and in some cases 3 times since the '03 fires sambar deer numbers have increased dramatically in all these areas so much so that even the Vic Govt acknowledges the likely link between the fires and the building sambar populations in these burnt areas. The assumption of some seems to be that if a large area of forest is totally burnt by a wildfire then all the deer are killed....not true ! Certainly less mobile animals are very vulnerable to a large fire event but not a large, strong, highly mobile and intelligent animal like the sambar & most move-out well ahead of the fire front often days in advance and only a few fall victim to the actual fire. After the '03 fires I spent a few days walking quite a bit of the upper Dargo river that had been hot-burnt 100%....yet I found only 8 or 9 dead sambar in an area that would have held many 100's of animals pre-fire. The rest had clearly left the area well ahead of the fire and at that time reports were common from those fighting these fires of sambar deer coming out of the unburnt bush and moving into other catchements before the fires were anywhere near these locations.

What we then get post-fire is large-scale bush regeneration which then creates an ideal environment for the deer.....a newly growing forest with plenty of fresh green pick coming-up and as there's always pockets of unburnt bush in even the worst fire-ravaged areas there is ample escape and thermal cover for these animals as the bush quickly comes back. So post-fire the sambar population quickly go through a rapid increase and we are certainly seeing this in eastern Victoria since the 2003 and later fires of 05/06 and again in the summer of 2012/13. All this post-bushfire forest regeneration provides a large food resource for the deer and once the re-gen thickens-up in a couple of years the habitat then becomes ideal....plenty of feed, abundant thermal and escape cover and as the country is then too thick to effectively hunt this often minimizes threats from hunters....land based or otherwise. Wild-fires certainly don't have a negative impact on deer numbers.....not sambar deer anyway...quite the oposite as it creates perfect conditions for them to thrive.....and they clearly are.

Not having a crack at you or your comments as you make some interesting and valid points.....just providing another perspective on several of the issues that you've raised in your previous posts. Cheers

S358

[maddog]

G'day Sambar,

I agree that if an individual, company, or other entity has an interest in promoting a particular version of reality, there will always exist a temptation to manipulate figures. The stronger the incentive, the greater the hazard. In the corporate world, reports are inspected by independent auditors. The strength of the system depends on the audit, not the honesty of a self-interested party. Not all figures, or the assumptions behind them, need be checked, only a sample. But always enough to verify reliability to a satisfactory level of confidence. Academics likewise are subject to scrutiny, not by auditors but peers, who require references, methods and other data as necessary. All must be capable of measure.

In the case of culling, to determine success evaluation is likewise necessary. Anecdotal evidence alone is insufficient. We could ground verify kills, searching frantically for every last one. But this would be time consuming, costly and ultimately futile, as we do not measure success by pointing to a pile of rotting carcasses. A simpler and more cost effective option is to use a proxy measure, the Faecal Pellet Index (FPI) being just one. Chose a sample area, small enough to be cost effective, large enough to be representative. Count pellets before the cull, count pellets after the cull, estimate change in density, judge success against predefined aims. The rubbery figures of the Game-Council could neither be verified, or used to measure success. You can be sure the success of the 'Supplementary Pest Control' program will be measured, but not with rotting carcasses.

In regards to the impact of fire on deer, the helicopter study referred to a previous study conducted after the 'Black Saturday' fires of 2009 and is available here:

http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/144/paper/WR12033.htm

The focus of the study was Sambar deer at Kinglake National Park, which was burnt, and Mt Buffalo National Park, which was not. The study, again using the FPI as a proxy, recorded the steady, and uninterrupted, rise in the FPI at Mt Buffalo. Prior to 'Black Saturday', the trend at Kingslake was similar, but after fire the FPI at Kingslake plummeted to zero. After a year, Sambar abundance began to increase, with the regeneration of forest understory species. After 16-24 months it was estimated that occupancy was only slightly reduced from pre-fire levels. The area was likely re-colonised from surrounding farmland. Fencing the vacated area, or culling Sambar in the surrounding area, within eight months of fire was recommended. It was concluded that:

Sambar deer numbers were substantially reduced by the 'Black Saturday' fires of February 2009

Cheers

[sambar358]

Maddog....my apologies for what has turned-out to be a rather lengthy post....I hope you can wade thru it all.

Again your raise some interesting points in your response to my comments : I guess we can interpret "sambar deer numbers were substantially reduced by the Black Saturday fires in Feb 2009" in two different ways : one is that the many of the resident deer were killed by the fires and the other is that the reduction in numbers in those areas was temporary & most of the sambar moved-out ahead of the fires to areas that were yet to be burnt or remained unburnt. Certainly my on-ground wanderings in several burnt-over areas in the ANP in East Gippsland post 'the '03, '05/'06 and '13 fires support the latter position as I found very few dead deer in heavily burnt country yet in the patches of unburnt bush there were many sambar present...far more than there would normally be and clearly these were sambar displaced from the burnt areas seeking refuge.

If the population was decimated by the fire your quoted study results that "after 16-24 months it was estimated that occupancy was only slightly reduced from pre-fire levels" clearly supports my view that most sambar moved-out pre-fire then when conditions were favourable returned to the regenerating burnt areas. Sambar hinds have but one calf every 8 months...they don't have "litters" so a return to almost pre-fire populations would not be achieved in 16-24 months if the majority of the sambar population perished in those extensive fires. Sambar won't return to a burnt area until the conditions are right feed & cover-wise and certainly in the areas burnt in the 2009 fires north of Melbourne the deer had plenty of areas to move into including the various no-go Melb. water supply catchements, small private property holdings and the many boutique Parks and Reserves that abound in those areas. So we may have to "agree to disagree"on that one I think. But from the Victorian perspective there have never been more sambar than there are now.....there has been a rapid build-up of their numbers since these 10 years of bushfires and the country that was burnt in '03, 05/06 2009 and in 2013 is full of them. And what can be done about that ? Very little....they are here to stay and we may as well just accept that. Try and manage their numbers most certainly but eradication is totaly fanciful as it is for any of our introduced species.....they will be here forever.

On the FPI method of determining deer density fluctuations....I've had some involvement in that process in Vic in several NP's in the east of the state working with PV staff monitoring transect lines and record pellet drops at set intervals along these transect lines over a number of years. I've also done some of the same in the North Island of NZ on sika and red deer so I am familiar with the process. The Vic NP transect lines we were working with I understand were set randomly and as an experienced hunter knowing where the deer are likely to be I felt that many of these lines were never going to produce much in the way of data in regards to deer density or indicate any increase in deer numbers over a number of reviews of these transects. Obviously you are unable to count random pellet drops discovered off these tranasect lines....you just locate and count the pellet drops in the pre-set count areas along these transect lines. And deer being deer.....they'll drop their pellets when they want and where they want of course and lobbing a pile on a PV trasect line count-point would be more good luck than good management. While the data obtained may be indicative of any change in population density it does not really indicate what numbers are actually there especially if a lot of the transect lines are not in the country that the deer tend to inhabit as I felt ours were. Counting deer pellet drops is OK in determining density fluctuations.....but then what, what happens next ? Let's assume that there are building numbers of sambar in Kinglake NP (a Vic no-hunting National Park)....so what's the plan to address that ? I see via your link to the Kinglake NP FPI survey that the study concluded that these areas burnt should see sambar culling done within 8 months to prevent a rapid re-population by the deer....was this done ? And as for the recommendation for exclusion fencing....hardly practical in reation to costs to adequately fence even small areas compounded by the fact that a sambar will clear any 1.5m stock-fence (even electrified) with ease. These studies are fine and valuable information is gained from them.....but they should be only the mechanism whereby the data received then generates an effort to address any perceived problem. To me....this seems to be where things fall in a heap.....the "doing something about it" bit.

I'm not denigrating scientific study via FPI's of deer numbers but that in itself acheives nothing apart from establishing that there is or is not an increase.....there then needs to be a workable solution inititated after the science has established that there is a problem. What's the solution ? ATM Victoria has 25,000 licenced deer hunters and this is increasing each year by at least 10%. Most of these hunters hunt sambar deer and if we can believe the latest 2012 DSE survey of a sample of these hunters : 41,600 deer were taken in 2012 by recreational hunters in Victoria. Rubbery fugures....maybe and yet again maybe not & who can say for sure but figures gathered using "accepted scientific methodolgy" and the report was done by the the Arthur Rhylah Institute for Environmental Research....so an independant body with some credibility in the scientific world I would think. If accurate in anyones language that's a lot of deer likely removed from the Victorian bush by recreational deer hunters....by comparison how many fell to government funded aerial culling in Victoria in 2012 I wonder ?

And as for the NSW Supplimentary Pest Contro Program in selected NP's....this program is clearly set-up to fail and I suspect fail it will. It is overly-restrictive in insisting that accredited hunters who must pass a stringent and expensive (self-funded) course of theory and practice before commencing the actual hunting are then not trusted enough to enter a Park and hunt for allocated target species without being accompanied by a Parks employee. This Parks employee is likely someone doesn't support the concept, doesn't want to be there, may not know the country or be familiar with the habits of the target species or be physically capable of negotiating the terrain and putting-in a reasonable physical effort to acheive a reasonalbe outcome for "their hunter". These restrictive requiremnents will just make the hunters lot far more difficult that it otherwise would be. I've done plenty of hunting with non-hunting tag-alongs and it just doesn't work on a number of fronts especially if the tag-along isn't committed to the program in the first place. The cost of supplying 1:1 supervisory Parks staff more than likely on over-time, support vehicles & camping equipment, food etc, having pre-hunt meetings, doing post-hunt reports etc etc. I can just imagine all the Govt-generated red-tape involved in this and all the OH&S compliance requirements....the costs for any likely kill outcomes under this arrangement will be totally unacceptable and the program will fail miserably as it has been set-up to do.

But down in Vic I'm OK.....I can hunt deer unaccompanied and unsupervised whenever I want in most of the Apline and various other National Parks and public land for most of the year...no one is looking over my shoulder telling me what to do and when to do it. And the best thing of all is that the Government encourages me to do what I'm doing as they see real a benefit from my recreational efforts on a number of fronts both ecomonic and enviromental. I am not regarded as a potential murder and environmental vandal and in fact most other bush users do not even know that I am in there with them as I have been for 40+ years. To me it seems a pity that NSW has so far to go in this respect but that probably explains why we see so many from north of the Murray down here enjoying our unrestricted public land sambar hunting and supporting local rural economies with their $$$$ in our mountains each winter. Cheers

S358

[wearthefoxhat]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/j ... di-corrupt

Well well the famous untouchable author of the Dunn report that slammed the Game Council Mr Steve Dunn is corrupt. Now we know Dunn is coruptable perhaps he was coerced into his game council findings!
Does a report have any credibility now we know the head of the report is a corruptible crook? Interesting!

In the mean time the DPI and now the CSIRO have acknowledged the usefulness of recreational hunters in controlling feral animals. Logic will prevail eventually.

[wearthefoxhat]

Some good posts Sambar. Interesting and logical.
I would love the chance to hunt Sambar. One sambar doe must be 3 to 4 times the meat than the fallow does we hunt here in NSW.

It is estimated the sambar population is much greater than previously thought being closer to 400,000 than 250,000. The fact that hunters apparently take up to 40,000 per year has certainly reduced the potential numbers long term. I would guess recreational hunters have taken many times more animals that any government agency as is usually the case... and at little cost!

There is a problem in a Northern territory now non huntable National park where pigs are now raiding turtle nests. Rec Hunters have offered their help for free but the bureaucrats and greenies throw spanners in the works. This is why I consider bureaucrats and Greenies the true environmental vandals...

[maddog]

$7150 for each animal killed in NSW hunting program

[Travis22]

"I don't mean to be disrespectful to the National Parks and Wildlife rangers, but experienced hunters don't need toilet cleaners showing them how to hunt," he said.


Wowsers someone's having a dig.

Travis.

[sambar358]

Maddog : some interesting numbers in that link on the "results" of the NSW NP hunting program & as I said in one of my earlier posts on this...."a program set up to fail" and it certainly has ! Less than 200 animals taken (and most of those rabbits) and at a cost of $7150 each ! Only a government could waste so much public money and get so little return for it......appalling but totally expected. And I wouldn't be too hastly to blame the participating shooters either.....imagine the costs in OH&S compliance, program administration, overtime for supervising Parks staff, vehicle costs, accommodation, food, pre and post-hunt meetings and analysis and doing reports....overkill to the extreme but not on the critters that should have been getting it.

As a comparison....a week ago I was contacted by an elderly lady to do some rabbit control on her 5 acre property after she had been fobbed-off by local DEPI and the Water Catchment Authority which she leases her river frontage from and where most of the rabbits are living. Being an aged pensioner and quite frail she can neither afford nor is she physically able to do much about the rabbits which are literally eating her out of house and home and most don't live on her actual freehold anyway. So I offered to give her a hand to get the numbers down and so far in 4 evening sits I've accounted for 106 just sniping them off with the 22 rimfire.....very effective and low cost at 12c a shot which I'm happy to bear of course. Now if I was in NSW and those "waskally wabbits" were in a NP that would have cost the NSW taxpayer nearly $758,000 under their failed scheme !!!!

So the NSW govt have wasted about $1.5 million on this doomed-to-fail scheme.....and the Parks are still over-run with ferals. Hardly much of a surprise there.....so now what ? Cheers

s358

[Travis22]

12cents a shot, you must be using premium ammo S358

Seriously tho, good work helping out and getting her rabbit issue under control.

Travis.

[maddog]

G’day Sambar,

From the SMH report it appears that most of the costs involved in the trial were associated with the ‘development of procedures and protocols’, fixed costs that will (one would assume) diminish over time as the number of ‘pests’ culled increases (on a per ‘pest’ basis). The OEH appear to remain supportive of the supplementary pest control program (SPCP), with their representative stating that ‘ground shooting was required for a small number of trap shy or bait shy animals that were resistant to other pest management techniques’. I doubt that there is much to be gained from shooting rabbits at $7,152 each though.

As to what happens now, it will be interesting to see if the qualified support of the OE&H is sufficient to overcome the widespread unpopularity of any hunting in NSW National Parks scheme. The Shooters’ seem as diplomatic as ever, a trait unlikely to secure support beyond their diminutive support base. So perhaps the most obvious option would be to shut the scheme down once and for all. No doubt politically this would have some benefit.

Another possibility, which seems to have escaped consideration, would be to incorporate the SPCP into the (no doubt imminent) cull of brumbies in KNP. I understand brumby numbers were once kept at manageable levels by a combination of brumby running and selective ground shooting by graziers. The resumption of such practices may be politically less problematic than aerial culling. Given the slow rates of reproduction it might even do some good.

Cheers

[icefest]

After hanging around on this (and similar threads) for about a year now, I think I've changed my opinion regarding hunting in Australian parks.
I understand that some hunting in parks is beneficial, and think there is a place for it within certain regulatory guidelines.

Much of that was due to s358's input. Thanks s358.