Hey Jindy, when you going to do sometiong about all them hogs?

[Orygun]

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/3150

He said Australia had up to 23 million feral pigs, more than 300,000 feral camels, with the population doubling every eight years, and an estimated 300,000 feral horses.

Australia's human population is 20.4 million.

 

[jindydiver]

it is a great situation for hunters hey
The horses are a drama though. Just like in the US, Australia has plenty of people who see horses as something above the rules of nature and ignore the damage large populations of introduced animals can do. The whole thing isn't helped by the fact that there are huge areas of fragile public land locked away from hunters.
In some places common sense prevails, for instance we can shoot on a lot of public land in Victoria and New South Wales, and in new National Parks in Qld there is some hunting done as part of the management programs while they transition from working cattle stations to NP's. But in established NP's in all states except Victoria hunting is banned and the Gov does not have the money (or in the case of horses the political will) to control do do more than token pest control.

You might be surprised also to here that since that article was written pig and camel numbers have exploded

 

[Orygun]

We have similar problems with "wilderness" areas. Enviro type groups keep wanting to lock away more and more land to "preserve" it. The tighter restrictions make it harder to deal with invasives. Aside from our horse/burro and expanding pigs we have invasive plants.

Cheat grass for one is dominating millions of acres of public lands. That and other ones ruin the habitat making it harder for game and non-game populations to prosper. And when you limit the ability to say spray herbicides over huge areas to control massive infestations you get the slow collapse of an ecosystem. And their solution is to lock away even more land we can't take care of.

 

[asaxon]

Get rid of.......

anic:I discussed this with the Admiral (who is a native Kiwi). She suggested, given the numbers and other factors, it might be easier to get rid of the Aussies and keep the pigs, camels, horses etc. I think she says that because the Aussies beat them at Rugby...

 

[jindydiver]

LOL