Feral Fighters and other group pest animal control programs

So foxes are certainly one of Australia's worst introduced pest animals

They impact heavily on sheep production in particular lands but they are also a major predator of native wildlife

In our situation wish sheep farmers and foxes will attack and kill lambs

Foxes cause a pretty significant impact on a whole range of animals from native species which uh, quite commonly preyed on preyed upon by them, through to our livestock species which are both eaten by them but also infected by a lot of diseases that foxes can transmit as well

Feral fighters is a program which is a community program looking to to marshal everybody in the community working with Local Land Services to make a really significant and lasting impact on the problems caused by the feral fox

The Feral Fighters program is incredibly important and it is probably one of the best initiatives that I've seen implemented throughout Australia

It's about bringing people together, it's providing a mechanism for people to work with their neighbours in their community to address a critical issue which is a problem with pest animals

We were certainly very conscious though from our farming background of the economic and hip pocket effect foxes were having and the environmental side was one thing for farmers and i think over time we've helped educate farmers about that but we were able to say by doing this we will save more sheep and the economic benefits of that were quite immediate

It's not the fox's fault that it's here, it's not our fault that the fox this generation's fault that's a fox is here, but it is our fault if if we allow it to continue

[Music] There are a variety of tools that people can use to undertake control of foxes

The main methods include ground-based baiting using 1080 baits which is a highly effective method and should be done at the landscape scale, so lots and lots of people involved ground-based shooting that's a fairly time consuming and the sort of technique that can be really used on a small scale leg hole trapping is also a method that can be used

But without a doubt ground-based baiting using 1080 baits is one of the most cost-effective methods for managing foxes

Initially i was a bit put off by the fact that i had uh dogs and I lost to one or two

But after realising that i'd have to shut my dogs up for some time because neighbours were putting out the fox plates anyway, i thought i might as well join the baiting systems so 1080 while the stuff that we use comes in a jar is found naturally in a lot of Australian native plants, thinking is that a lot of native animals have been able to develop a high resistance to 1080 through exposure to these 1080 containing naturally 1080 containing plants, it's actually not the 1080 that's the problem it's the target of the 1080 and that's the fox which is the problem

We've got to get the fox out of the environment and then we won't have to use as much 1080

If you look at the statistics and the fact that they're now up to over 12 000 baits a year being put out and the number of accidental poisonings uh hasn't gone up and in fact it's gone down, is testament to the fact that this program through its uh vital education component is trying to achieve best practice and is dealing with the safety issues quite nicely

Basically to start with we do a chemical course and that means that you can then handle the fox poison the local land service people will come out to deliver the baits and then those baits will be given out then go out to the paddock and put out the baits

Feral Fighters, um in the last few years has been funded through the LLS so people are able to get baits free

One of the main costs of putting baits out doing fox control is not so much as in the cost of the baits or those things it is actually your time

Foxes are very territorial and they have huge territories

They don't know the boundary fence of my farm or Lucy's farm if we're baiting on our farm and we knock one or two out the ones that come from the neighbours are quickly going to inhabit our land again as well

The  only way in which it can be done is by everybody getting into it together and doing it in a sensible smart way by baiting at the best strategic times to do it

Sometimes neighbours go months and months without seeing each other but what we find certainly in our group is we get together and then a couple of hours later they're still standing there having a yarn with the um, the mental health issue that's been ongoing for many years with people, not only farmers, but people from everywhere

We decided to use the hall which was built by my grandfather years ago and meet there for just a conversation on Sunday afternoon or Friday night to watch a football game or something and just talk and look at our watches

Then oh we better go home now

For both of us as mums it's important that the biodiversity of our farms is maintained and preserved for our children and we want to leave the landscape for our kids a better place than what we come into it as probably the one positive for me is just the engagement with the community and it's just sort of like people trying to help themselves so we try and help them and if they get a positive out of it yeah we get um you know a positive feeling out of that as well

If we keep at this uh in the way that we are we can make the fox a nuisance an irritant that we've still got to live with rather than the significant environmental and agricultural problem that it is.