Bounty-hunting feral animals, including pigs, could be coming soon to NSW. Photo: Jono Searle/AAP
A premier has thrown his weight behind paying bounty hunters to reduce feral cats, goats and pigs roaming his state, but it has come with scrutiny.
NSW Premier Chris Minns has backed a “novel” solution to tackle feral cat, pig and goat populations.
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Mr Minns threw his weight behind feral animal bounties, saying the state had to do better to control the pest populations.
Invasive species are the highest-impact contributors to extinctions, directly endangering 70 per cent of threatened wildlife and ecosystems in NSW.
“It’s about time we start thinking about novel ways of reducing the feral goat, the feral pig, the feral cat population, which has really taken over a lot of parks,” Mr Minns told Triple M Coffs Coast radio.
“We should be open to bounties and other things, because we’ve got a lot of recreational shooters out there that are actually getting rid of a lot of the pests roaming across our native vegetation.”
But the Invasive Species Council accused the Labor Government of trying to appease the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, a keen supporter of reintroducing bounties.
Labor wanted more support in parliament’s upper house and backing bounties would help sway other votes, the council’s chief executive Jack Gough said.
Governments in Western Australia and Queensland had already concluded bounties do not work, he said.
“This is a dirty deal with the Shooters,” Mr Gough said.
Bounty hunting kills between two and 10 per cent of the population, the Federal Bureau of Rural Sciences says.
But research suggests that to achieve population suppression, at least 70 per cent of the feral pig population and 57 per cent of cat populations have to be killed annually.
“The advice from the environment department ... is that this will do nothing,” Mr Gough said.
NSW Shooters and Fishers leader Robert Borsak says a bounty scheme will help lower feral animal numbers. Photo: AAP/Steven Saphore
But NSW Farmers president Xavier Martin said feral animals were devastating farmland and proving a danger to people.
A wild boar knocked him off his motorcycle, he said.
“They (farmers) are seeing the existing tools — mainly being baiting and trapping and aerial culling — are not controlling sufficient numbers,” Mr Martin said.
“Over my career, I’ve had to control feral pests, foxes and rabbits, and in my career, pigs have emerged as a major and growing problem doing extraordinary damage.”
NSW Shooters and Fishers leader Robert Borsak has been advocating for a $2 million state bounty scheme, which he says will play a part in lowering numbers.
“They will never be eradicated, and you also have to accept that all the endeavours of government in past years have been only partially successful, if anything,” he said.
“It’s just another string on the bow which has been totally ignored.”
Bounty programs run in some Queensland councils targeting dingoes, feral pigs and wild dogs.
In Victoria, about 80,000 foxes were killed under a fox bounty scheme in 2022. The scheme has been running for 14 years.
