Emergency animal diseases

Know how to spot signs of serious livestock disease and what to do if you suspect an emergency case. Emergency animal diseases can have severe consequences for livestock productivity, trade and human health.

decorative

Act quickly if you suspect an emergency animal disease. Call the 7-day, 24-hour EAD hotline on 1800 675 888

Australia currently has a disease-free status for foot and mouth disease and lumpy skin disease, however all landholders need to play an active role in monitoring and reporting any suspect cases of emergency animal disease. By looking for and reporting emergency animal disease, you're helping to protect your animals’ welfare, your farm, your neighbours and our industry.

What are emergency animal diseases?

1:05

Emergency Animal Disease Hotline

Seen any unusual signs of sickness or disease in your animals or livestock? Call the Emergency Animal Disease (EAD) Hotline on 1800 675 888.

Read transcript
Video transcript

Emergency Animal Disease Hotline

Do you know what to do if you see
any signs of sickness or disease in your livestock?
Maybe your cows have lumps,
your sheep have blisters
or your pigs are having trouble standing.
Investigating unusual signs of illness
helps you protect your livestock,
your neighbours and our industry.
Call the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline anytime day or night
and let us know what you are concerned about.
We will call you back
to find out more about the affected animals
including signs of illness,
their history and recent movements.
You will receive advice over the phone
including the next steps to care for your animals.
A vet may need to visit your property
to examine your animals
and take samples for lab testing.
The vet will share the results with you
and provide advice throughout the next steps
to manage the health of your livestock.
Look after your animals and protect our industry
by calling the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline
to report unusual signs of sickness
or disease in your livestock.

How do you distinguish an emergency animal disease from a more regular disease found in livestock?

An emergency animal disease (EAD) is: 

  • a known disease that doesn’t normally occur in Australia, and is considered in the national interest for the country to be free from that disease
  • a variation of a disease that does occur in Australia, and would have a national impact
  • a serious infectious disease of unknown or uncertain cause, which may not be on the national list of emergency diseases, and/or 
  • a disease that occurs sporadically in Australia, but is occurring in such a severe outbreak form that an emergency response is required. 

See our section on 'Signs of emergency diseases' below. If in doubt, don't hesitate to contact us (details end of this page).

Risk of foot and mouth disease and lumpy skin disease

These emergency animal diseases have recently been reported in countries close to our international borders. This is a stark reminder of the risk that exotic diseases play and our shared role in protecting our agricultural industry. 

Your support is essential to protect NSW’s clean reputation and ensure ongoing market access. 

It is critical that you: 

  • LOOK: Know what these diseases look like and keep an eye out for the signs. 
  • CHECK: Check your animals regularly 
  • ASK A VET: Call the EAD Hotline 1800 675 888 to report your observations and get further advice. You can also call Local Land Services (contact details below) and speak to your local district vet. 

See our pages on foot and mouth disease and lumpy skin disease

decorative

Lesions visible on Lumpy skin disease

What are some of the signs of an emergency animal disease?

Female vet holding cow's head to inspect for signs of illness

Check regularly for signs of livestock disease

Some signs that might make you suspicious of an EAD include: 

  • the appearance of ulcers or blisters on the mouth or feet of ruminants or pigs, 
  • an unexplained and significant increase in a mortality rate or morbidity rate 
  • an unexplained and significant fall in production 
  • the appearance of other unexplained and significant clinical signs in animals including, but not limited to, unexplained neurological signs or conditions. 

 

Read more about animal diseases of concern

For more general information, see livestock health and diseases

 

Access webinars on emergency animal diseases

47:58

Emergency animal disease information session recording

Read transcript
Video transcript

Emergency animal disease information session recording

For those of you who don't know me, Ian Poe is my name. I'm a district vet with the Local Land Services based in Kempsey, so I sort of cover the War Hope area as well.

I'd just like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet today and pay my respects to Elders past and present.

So there's a couple of other speakers tonight. You'll get to hear from me, also Christy Saul who's from New South Wales DPI, and Mick Elliott who's one of our biosecurity officers involved in the invasive pests team. We've also got Lou up the back handing stuff out. Yeah, there's plenty of handouts up there—feel free to grab whatever you like, it saves us carting them home again.

We've also, yeah, got some of the team from New South Wales Health Disaster Recovery, and Colleen will say a few words just at the end. In regards to questions, if we can just hold the questions just till the end of the presentations, yeah, there'll be time for questions at the end. There may be some that we can't answer, particularly around things like border control and those sort of federal government type questions. But yeah, we'll do our best and, yeah, if need be we can get back to you.

I'd also like to welcome David Dawson. So David's our local board member on the North Coast LLS board and he'll just say a couple of words. Thanks Bowie.

Thank you everyone for coming. It's really good to see a good turnout. We've had some river meetings so far—gotta go Bellingen, had one against the other night—and the Local Land Services staff are putting them on right across the region: Casino, Kyogle, Grafton, the whole works. And they're all being really well attended and that's great, as it is a very important topic.

Ian and Christy will take you through what we can do at the farm level to make sure these diseases don't get to our farms, but also minimize the spread if they ever do get into the country, which is what we can do. I think we have to have a bit of faith in the customs and the quarantine guys doing their work at the airports and the shipping terminals and all counts. That's going quite well.

But thank you very much for coming, and if you have any questions about LLS, the organization, how we work and what we do, please come and see me after the session to answer any of those sort of questions. But thanks again and back to it.

Ah, thanks David. Yeah, so we'll just get into it.

So I guess the first thing is why the excitement about, I mean, space—foot and mouth disease particularly has been in the media. But at the moment there are actually three what they call EADs, or emergency animal diseases, that are close to Australia, so into the north of the country. Those being foot and mouth disease or FMD, lumpy skin disease or LSD, and African swine fever or ASF.

We'll be talking tonight about foot and mouth disease and lumpy skin disease. We won't talk about African swine fever—it's a disease specific to pigs. If you have got pigs and you want to know more about ASF, then yeah, feel free to come and see me after tonight or feel free to give me a call at any time. I'm happy to talk to you about that disease.

So all three of those diseases are currently present in one or multiple countries to our immediate north, but none of them have been in Australia. So the foot and mouth was last in Australia in 1872—a very small outbreak associated with the importation of stock back at that time—and was eradicated. And we've never had an outbreak of either lumpy skin disease or ASF.

With foot and mouth disease and lumpy skin disease, the mortality rates are quite low, so they don't kill a lot of animals, but obviously they make the animals unwell. And so there's health and welfare implications if they were to get into the country. So foot and mouth disease—they obviously get very sore feet. We'll talk about the signs later, but there's certainly health and welfare implications.

The big issue with particularly FMD is it's highly contagious. And so in Indonesia it's spreading quite quickly. In Australia it would do the same thing. It generally infects close to a hundred percent of animals that come into contact with it.

Lumpy skin disease—much lower. Only about 10 to 20 percent of animals will become infected and only about 50 percent of them will show clinical signs.

So the big issue with either disease, and in particular foot and mouth disease, are the economic impacts and the effects on trade due to market disruptions. Over 70 percent of our agricultural products are exported, and in the case of mutton and lamb and beef and veal, it's over three quarters. And so an outbreak would close our export markets and obviously impact that market and cause considerable economic loss to Australia's agricultural industries.

So with FMD, the modeling that's been done suggests that an outbreak could cost 80 billion dollars. And that doesn't take into account costs such as damage to rural communities, mental health issues, and other associated costs outside of the industry. So significant economic impact if it were to get into the country.

So in Indonesia, FMD had the first case of FMD was the 12th of April. They officially notified the World Organization for Animal Health.

What's called the OIE on the 9th of May. So this is not the first time FMD has been in Indonesia. They had an outbreak in 1983 which they successfully eradicated in 1986. So they've dealt with it before—it's not the first time.

There's about half a million animals infected. The figures might be a shade out of date now, and over a million animals have been vaccinated to date.

So on the 5th of July, Australia was notified that FMD cases were in Bali—so yeah, getting closer to our shores. In the case of lumpy skin disease, Indonesia officially notified the OIE of its lumpy skin disease outbreak on the 2nd of March. There's been cases spread since then and the outbreak in Indonesia is ongoing. They have really been focusing on their FMD outbreak, so yeah, they haven't probably been controlling lumpy skin disease to the extent that they have FMD.

So you know, it is important to note that neither disease is in the country. The pathways are potential routes of introduction into the country. You know, up there on the board, sort of going from left to right is the highest risk to the lower risk. So Australia does have strict import conditions in place, so introduction of EAD through legal importation of commodities is very unlikely. The risk is really associated with illegal introduction of contaminated products.

So with FMD this could be, you know, meat or dairy products that are contaminated with virus and then those products being fed to pigs. So pigs are infected through ingestion of contaminated products. They amplify the virus and they'll shed it and then infect other animals. So ruminants—so cattle, sheep, goats, those sorts of things—are more likely to be infected through actually inhaling the virus, whereas pigs through ingestion. So that is still the most likely route of entry.

So in Australia, and obviously many other countries as well, the feeding of meat and dairy products is illegal to pigs. So in Australia it's illegal to feed any meat products of mammalian origin or dairy products that have been imported. And we'll talk a bit more about swill feeding later in the talk.

So the other risk is, you know, contaminated clothing, vehicles and equipment. And so, you know, obviously there's been a lot of talk about passengers returning, particularly from Bali. You know, bear in mind that passengers have been coming back into Australia from many other countries that have FMD up until this point. So that, while it is a risk, it is a much lower risk than the illegal importation of meat products.

Yeah, so you know, it's important that if people are coming back into the country that they, you know, declare where they've been honestly on those declarations coming in. And I guess at a producer level, farm level, you know, knowing who's coming onto your property and where they've been is also important.

Yeah, so there's also a risk from, you know, export vessels, container boats returning to Australia potentially with contamination as well. Again, there's processes in place to manage those risks.

In terms of lumpy skin disease, it can be spread by biting insects. So that's a mechanical transmission. So biting, you know, things like flies, mosquitoes, ticks—when they bite an infected animal, the virus will stick to the mouth parts. They'll go off and bite the next animal and spread the virus that way. And that's the greatest challenge with lumpy skin disease. Insects obviously don't respect borders. They don't tick the declaration pass on their way in. And so there's potential that they could blow into the country. They could also return on, you know, returning vessels, aircraft, that sort of thing as well.

There's also the risk with, you know, illegally imported products with lumpy skin disease as well.

So in terms of what's being done—so Indonesia, the Indonesian government have official position at the moment to eradicate foot and mouth disease. And that's their aim. They're doing this by vaccinating cattle and stamping out the infection in pigs. So they have set up quarantine zones, movement restrictions, you know, cleaning and decontamination of infected sites.

Yeah, so they're also rolling out a lumpy skin disease vaccination campaign. So they're using vaccination to control lumpy skin disease. That's had some challenges over there with logistical issues. And they're also looking at vector control to try and minimize the spread of LSD.

Australia has supported Indonesia through senior government officials visiting Indonesia to meet with counterparts there to gain a better understanding of the situation that's going on in Indonesia. They've also assisted through the development and delivery of education and support programs, assisted with provision of vaccine, and have provided some technical and laboratory support as well. You know, obviously it's in Australia's interests to assist Indonesia to control the disease.

Other near neighbours—so Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea—Australia has been assisting those countries with capacity building for diagnostics, disease surveillance and preparedness over there. Obviously, you know, the earlier the disease, if it were to get to either of those countries, that we want to increase the likelihood of it being picked up early. So Australia spends time working with other countries trying to, you know, assist over there rather than sitting back waiting for an outbreak here.

On the domestic front—so we do have pretty good systems in Australia to prevent and be prepared for emergency animal diseases. What's happened recently—so there's been an EAD preparedness task force established this year to coordinate department activities around LSD and FMD. There's increased engagement with industry, so there's various different newsletters you can get from different groups. Animal Health Australia put out a weekly bulletin updating on the situation with both diseases.

Australia's also investigating options for lumpy skin disease vaccine, including looking at the possibility of development locally for a vaccine. There's been, yeah, fast tracking of existing LSD preparedness activities to build enhanced diagnostic testing and surveillance.

So at the border we've also seen increased screening and inspections of returning vessels and passengers and aircraft. So increased screening of posted packages for biosecurity risk materials has also been an increased use of biosecurity detector dogs at airports and in postage facilities. And they have put in foot mats at airports to assist.

So yeah, that's all, you know, sort of big picture stuff and it's interesting at a producer level. And I guess really what we're trying to, you know, push out to people is, you know, what's important at the local level and at the farm level. And really critical is knowing the signs of both foot and mouth disease and lumpy skin disease.

If either of them were to get into the country, our ability to contain and eradicate the diseases quickly really hinges on early reporting and diagnosing. So if we pick up the very, very first case and it hasn't spread, we're a much better chance of dealing with it than if it's spread.

So, you know, at the end of the day it'll be a livestock owner that sees something that just is not quite right, hopefully reports it to us, we can get it investigated and picked up early. So yeah, really it's important that as producers you know the signs.

So foot and mouth disease—it can affect all cloven-hooved animals. So that, you know, cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, camelids, deer. So yeah, pigs—whole range of species that it can affect. So basically anything with the hoof split into two.

The signs that we see—so initially it'll cause a blister or a vesicle, and they can occur in the mouth, on the snout in pigs, on the tongue, lips, feet or on the teats in cows. Those vesicles or blisters will then rupture and cause a raw, very sore lesion—open, ulcer-type lesion.

And the signs that we see are obviously associated with the pain from those lesions. So we see limping, lameness or reluctance to move, particularly in pigs—that's a common sign. Drooling, so a lot of salivation, reluctance to eat. You see obviously production loss associated with that, and a fever as well.

So young dairy herds will see a significant drop in milk production and weight loss in beef animals. So there's some of the signs that we can see.

So a couple of, you know, cattle mouths at the top there and you can see those open lesions in between the claws there on the hoof, and then a pig snout. And I guess just, you know, reiterating the range of species that foot and mouth disease can infect.

One of the things—and I guess it's sort of really the main reason I have a job with LLS—is to actually test for these diseases to rule them out. So these are actually some examples of animals that we've seen and we've tested that are not foot and mouth disease.

So we do get animals with oral lesions that can resemble the disease, and it's important that we get out and test those and make sure that it's not foot and mouth disease. So the picture on my side is a disease called bovine papular stomatitis. Other than the fact that it looks—well, it can resemble foot and mouth disease—we wouldn't get terribly excited about it. It doesn't really cause too many issues. Most commonly occurs in young cattle, and that was a lesion on the tongue of an animal that was seen and again tested negative for foot and mouth disease.

So with lumpy skin disease—it only affects cattle and buffalo, and only about 50 percent of animals that are infected will show clinical signs. There's some breed variability—say, Bos indicus breeds and buffalo will show less obvious signs than British breeds.

Obviously lumpy skin disease, as the name suggests, you see lumps on the skin. You can see other clinical signs as well, including discharge from the nose and the eyes, enlarged lymph nodes, a drop in milk production and loss of body condition, fever. So these animals would be, you know, pretty unwell. You can see abortion and fertility issues as well. And occasionally, you know, in a small number of animals—so again, the mortality rates are quite low—but you can see internal lesions at postmortem.

Yeah, so there are a few more pictures of that. So yeah, obviously multiple skin lesions on these animals. They get like a crust sort of in the center of that lesion. They can break off and you end up with, again, an open sort of sore.

So again, we do see similar things in the area. So these are a couple of cases that we've seen in recent times where we've done exclusion testing. So we've tested these animals for lumpy skin disease—it's come back negative.

On this side, that's just an insect bite reaction. So, you know, with buffalo fly over the summer months, we can certainly see cattle with skin lesions. The case on the other side is actually a mast cell tumor. It's quite an unusual finding.

So if you see anything that resembles either of them at all, or in fact you're seeing anything that you think, "Gee, that's really unusual, I haven't seen that before," please give me a call and we can investigate it.

There is a legal obligation to report. So these are notifiable diseases, and so anybody, you know, who sees something that they think could be it has a legal obligation to let us know.

There's a few ways that you can do that. You can either ring me directly—that's my number. If you can't get hold of me or if I don't get back to you reasonably quickly, then you can ring our office number: 1300 795 299, and you get put in touch with one of the other district vets in our region.

Failing that, there is the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline number. So that is manned by the New South Wales DPI. They have a 24-hour service, so a vet that works with the New South Wales DPI will get back to you very quickly and they will usually contact us.

You can also use a private vet. So you might have a private vet that you use, and they can do the investigation. They'll work with us and we'll work with them to get samples off to the lab and get the testing done.

So yeah, I'd encourage everyone, if you haven't put that EAD hotline number into your phone, you know, so you have it on standby.

So yeah, that's all, you know, sort of big picture stuff and it's interesting. At a producer level, and I guess really what we're trying to, you know, push out to people is, you know, what's important at the local level and at the farm level.

Really critical is knowing the signs of both foot and mouth disease and lumpy skin disease. If either of them were to get into the country, our ability to contain and eradicate the diseases quickly really hinges on early reporting and diagnosing. So if we pick up the very, very first case and it hasn't spread, we're a much better chance of dealing with it than if it's spread.

So, you know, at the end of the day it'll be a livestock owner that sees something that just is not quite right, hopefully reports it to us, we can get it investigated and picked up early.

So other things that you can do, you know, that can assist in the event that we were to get an outbreak of any disease—you would have all got your annual land and stock returns from LLS recently. They need to be in by the end of the month if you haven't done it. But that does give us information on where stock are, what species are on different properties, and will allow us to send resources where they need to be if there were a disease outbreak.

Being up to date with your NLIS stuff as well. So if you're running stock, you need to have a PIC. You should become LPA accredited and access NVDs. So use an NVD when you're selling stock, have an online NLIS database account, and make sure that you, you know, are transferring animals on the database.

If you're buying stock privately, then you will need to do that yourself, and it's the receiver of the animals that is ultimately responsible. If you're purchasing animals through agents or sale yards, they will do that transfer on your behalf. But it is important—the NLIS, and Christy will talk about it a little bit later, is really an important tool if we were to get a disease outbreak. It allows us to trace the movement of livestock and work out where disease might have spread.

The other thing that, you know, I'm suggesting people do is to perform a PIC reconciliation. So on the NLIS database, it will have attached to your PIC a number of devices that it thinks are on your property, and that may or may not be accurate. So by doing a PIC reconciliation, you can essentially make sure that the devices that are listed against your PIC on the database are in fact a true reflection of what's on your property at that time. And there's some handouts up the back on just how to do that.

Prevents swill feeding—and this is really important. As I said earlier, the feeding of illegally imported meat products to pigs is the highest risk pathway for foot and mouth to come into the country. So what they call swill feeding—prohibited pig feed—is basically meat or meat products, imported milk products, or anything that's been in contact with those products.

So you can't push scraps off the kitchen, off your, you know, plate that's had contact with meat. It all has to go in the bin. So it's really important to make sure that pigs aren't fed these sorts of products and can't access these sorts of products.

So making sure that you're, you know, fencing tip areas. So we actually work with local councils to look at local tips and make sure that feral pigs can't come in. And obviously control feral pigs if you're having feral pig issues on your property. And now Mick will talk about that in a little time.

Farm biosecurity plan is another very useful tool to help reduce the risk of any disease coming onto your property—not just these EADs. So a few years ago, the LPA introduced the requirement for anyone who was accredited under that program to have a biosecurity plan. I expect a lot of people at that time did one. Some people might still be using it and might have updated it since, but now is a good time to look at that.

In 2017, that was the case—so that was when it came in for the LPA. In 2019, there was some legislation introduced into Parliament and that actually strengthened, you know, the laws around people coming onto farms without adhering to biosecurity measures in place. And so there are fines that can be issued if people come onto your property illegally and aren't adhering to your plan.

But you need to have a plan in place. You need to have signage on the gate as well.

So at a producer level, yeah, really it is the single most valuable step that individual producers can take.

So the biosecurity plan identifies risks and risk pathways for diseases, pests, weeds coming onto your property. So it's more than just, you know, animal diseases. It identifies those risks and pathways and identifies some management practices that you can undertake to minimize those risks.

So as I said, if you haven't reviewed your plan recently, now is a very good time. You know, do you keep record of who's come onto your property? Do you ask them where they've been? I mean, obviously if people are coming onto your property that have recently returned from overseas, the current federal government advice is that people returning from countries where FMD is endemic is to not have contact with Australian animals for at least a seven-day period.

So ask these questions. You know, what hygiene and measures can you put in place? Like, you know, do you want to go down the path of foot baths? Can you ask people to leave their vehicles, you know, at the house or at the front gate, travel through your property in your vehicle? You know, you could ask, you know, people to put on, you know, boots or overalls that are on your property rather than wear their own boots—simple things like that.

Yeah, making sure that staff and family that are on the property also are aware of the plan and the requirements. And really, you know, it's about keeping good records—so knowing who's come on, where they've been. Include in your plan a plan for emergency. So unfortunately, the last few years we've been hit with fires and floods, and so having a plan for those, you know, fire and flood-type emergencies as well is really important.

We are happy to run some more biosecurity planning workshops if you are interested. Just see us at the end. Lou will, yeah, grab your details or see myself and we can plan those if people are keen and, you know, step you through developing a plan that's suitable for your farm.

So if there is a suspect emergency animal disease, you either call myself or you call a private vet or you call the EAD hotline. We will come out, we will do an investigation, we'll get the history, we'll look at the animals, we'll take a range of samples and we'll get those off to the lab.

So the testing in New South Wales is done at EMAI, so it's down near Sydney. They do some testing there. There's also a federal lab in Victoria where samples can be sent as well. So there is no cost for testing for these diseases. So the cost of testing at the labs is covered by the government.

We will also do testing to try and work out what the disease actually is. Obviously, at the end of the day, you know, it's important that we come back to you and say, well, great news—it's not foot and mouth disease. But you'd all still like to know, you know, why your cattle are sick or why they're dying. So hopefully we can come back to you with a diagnosis and work with your management of whatever that disease would be.

The big thing is, if you've got unwell stock, please don't send them to the sale yards. Obviously, having animals turn up, you know, with lumps all over their skin or salivating and mouth lesions inside yards, you know, creates a whole range of issues, as well as the fact that those sick animals are not, you know, not necessarily going to be fit to load anyway.

So yeah, please, if you suspect anything at all, ring myself, the EAD hotline, or your private vet and we will investigate it.

So yeah, in summary for my little bit—yeah, important to know what the signs of the EADs are, particularly at the moment with foot and mouth disease and lumpy skin disease. But anything at all that just doesn't look quite right, please get it investigated.

Make sure that your NLIS records are up to date and that movements are recorded on the NLIS database. Absolutely do not feed swill to pigs. And if you know of anyone with pigs who's not here, please pass that message on. That's all pigs—whether it be one pet pig or, you know, a commercial producer.

Yeah, have a farm biosecurity plan and use it. Update it now and certainly don't transport any suspect animals.

So that's it for me. I'll hand over to Christy now.

Good evening everyone. So my name is Christy Saul and I work for the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries in the Animal Biosecurity team. So I'm going to talk about what happens at a state level.

We'll get started here. So what is an emergency animal disease?

An emergency animal disease is a disease that is likely to have significant effects on livestock, potentially resulting in livestock deaths, production loss, and in some cases impacts on human health and the environment. It may be a known disease, a variant of an endemic disease, or a brand new disease.

An outbreak of a serious emergency animal disease can be disastrous for producers, causing significant personal stress and anguish as well as financial hardship. The livestock industries can lose sales opportunities both domestically and internationally in the wake of a damaged reputation for our produce, and the broader Australian economy could lose billions in trade and employment.

So what does an emergency animal disease response look like?

Generally, Australian policy is to eradicate any introduced exotic animal disease as quickly as possible. So this could involve establishment of disease control zones, quarantine and movement controls, possible destruction and disposal of infected and exposed animals, decontamination of infected premises, vehicles, equipment and animal products, surveillance of susceptible animals, restriction of the activities of certain enterprises, tracing of animal movements, vaccination or wild animal control.

So how does an emergency animal disease response work?

When an outbreak of an emergency animal disease is confirmed, the state or territory authority will quarantine the infected property immediately. They may also quarantine other properties, such as those close to the infected property or because of a recent animal, people or vehicle movement.

They also advise the Australian Government, the other states and territories, and the national organizations of the affected industries so that the management groups can convene and that agreed consultative disease management and funding arrangements can be put into place.

The State Chief Veterinary Officer then advises the Australian Chief Veterinary Officer of the detection. They initiate quarantine, movement controls and assessments around the initial site.

If the outbreak is due to foot and mouth disease, a 72-hour livestock standstill will be called. Alerts the state emergency management agencies to activate the animal diseases emergency plan and appoints a state coordinator.

The Chief Veterinary Officer also consults with national counterparts and advises to seek agreement on the preferred national control strategy. In liaison with industry and other agencies, produces an emergency animal disease response plan with approval from both the national Management Group and the consultative—I'm going to say the CCAD—and this will activate the Emergency Animal Disease Response Agreement.

So we'll go a bit into that agreement. Got the right slide, yep.

So the Emergency Animal Disease Response Agreement is a unique contractual agreement signed in 2002 that brings together the Australian state and territory governments and livestock industry groups to collectively and significantly increase Australia's capacity to prepare for and respond to emergency animal disease incursions.

The main benefit of the agreement is the ability to respond quickly and effectively to an emergency animal disease incident while minimizing uncertainty over management and funding arrangements. All signatories have agreed to work collectively to reduce the risk of emergency animal disease incursions and share the approved costs of emergency animal disease response.

So go a bit into quarantine and movement controls. In accordance with AUSVETPLAN for foot and mouth disease, a national livestock standstill will be implemented in the event of a foot and mouth disease outbreak. The standstill will occur for a minimum of 72 hours. Easing, lifting or extending the standstill would be dependent on the outbreak situation.

So it's really important that you as a producer are prepared for that—so having enough feed on hand, on farm. If we had a case of foot and mouth disease in Western Australia, in New South Wales we will still go into that 72-hour standstill just to give us time to understand how far the disease has spread across Australia.

So then we go into a restricted area. An initial restricted area of at least three kilometers will be drawn around all infected premises and premises of high risk—dangerous contact premises—subject to intense surveillance and movement controls. So all those impacted premises will have that three-kilometer radius, and in that three-kilometer radius there'll be no movements unless it's a really high-level animal welfare situation that we may allow.

And then on every property with susceptible animals, they will undergo surveillance. There may also be multiple restricted areas across the state, so it won't be just in one area—it just depends how far the disease has spread.

So then there'll be a control area, which is to control the movement of susceptible livestock and livestock products for as long as necessary to complete tracing and epidemiology studies. The control area will be a larger declared area around the restricted area—possibly as large as the state or territory in which the outbreak occurs. The control area will have a minimum radius of 10 kilometers.

The National Livestock Identification System, as most of you know as NLIS, is Australia's system for permanent identification and lifetime traceability of livestock. Successful disease control depends on fast, accurate tracing. Considerable expert resources will be dedicated to investigating movement on and off infected properties to determine where the disease might have come from and where it may have spread to.

You can speed up tracing by maintaining detailed records of your stock and people moving on your property.

The Australian Veterinary Emergency Plan, otherwise known as AUSVETPLAN, has been developed and agreed upon by governments and relevant industries in non-outbreak times to ensure that coherent, efficient and effective emergency animal disease response can be implemented consistently across Australia with minimal delay.

The Chief Veterinary Officer also consults with national counterparts and advises to seek agreement on the preferred national control strategy. In liaison with industry and other agencies, produces an Emergency Animal Disease Response Plan with approval from both the national Management Group and the consultative—I'm going to say the CCAD—and this will activate the Emergency Animal Disease Response Agreement.

So we'll go a bit into that agreement. Got the right slide, yep.

So the Emergency Animal Disease Response Agreement is a unique contractual agreement signed in 2002 that brings together the Australian state and territory governments and livestock industry groups to collectively and significantly increase Australia's capacity to prepare for and respond to emergency animal disease incursions.

The main benefit of the agreement is the ability to respond quickly and effectively to an emergency animal disease incident while minimizing uncertainty over management and funding arrangements. All signatories have agreed to work collectively to reduce the risk of emergency animal disease incursions and share the approved costs of emergency animal disease response.

So go a bit into quarantine and movement controls. In accordance with AUSVETPLAN for foot and mouth disease, a national livestock standstill will be implemented in the event of a foot and mouth disease outbreak. The standstill will occur for a minimum of 72 hours. Easing, lifting or extending the standstill would be dependent on the outbreak situation.

So it's really important that you as a producer are prepared for that—so having enough feed on hand, on farm. If we had a case of foot and mouth disease in Western Australia, in New South Wales we will still go into that 72-hour standstill just to give us time to understand how far the disease has spread across Australia.

So then we go into a restricted area. An initial restricted area of at least three kilometers will be drawn around all infected premises and premises of high risk—dangerous contact premises—subject to intense surveillance and movement controls. So all those impacted premises will have that three-kilometer radius, and in that three-kilometer radius there'll be no movements unless it's a really high-level animal welfare situation that we may allow.

And then on every property with susceptible animals, they will undergo surveillance. There may also be multiple restricted areas across the state, so it won't be just in one area—it just depends how far the disease has spread.

So then there'll be a control area, which is to control the movement of susceptible livestock and livestock products for as long as necessary to complete tracing and epidemiology studies. The control area will be a larger declared area around the restricted area—possibly as large as the state or territory in which the outbreak occurs. The control area will have a minimum radius of 10 kilometers.

The National Livestock Identification System, as most of you know as NLIS, is Australia's system for permanent identification and lifetime traceability of livestock. Successful disease control depends on fast, accurate tracing. Considerable expert resources will be dedicated to investigating movement on and off infected properties to determine where the disease might have come from and where it may have spread to.

You can speed up tracing by maintaining detailed records of your stock and people moving on your property.

The Australian Veterinary Emergency Plan, otherwise known as AUSVETPLAN, has been developed and agreed upon by governments and relevant industries in non-outbreak times to ensure that coherent, efficient and effective emergency animal disease response can be implemented consistently across Australia with minimal delay.

It is a guidance document with flexibility to address the nature of an individual emergency animal disease and the range of contexts across Australia. There are a number of disease-specific documents and supporting manuals which can all be accessed on the Animal Health Australia website. So if you want to know more details about these plan documents and how we'd manage your response, you can jump onto the Animal Health Australia website and have a look.

For vaccination, the role of vaccination will vary based on a range of factors—where and when the disease was introduced, the strain of the virus, how long has the virus been in Australia, and its potential for spread.

Australia is recognized as free from foot and mouth disease without vaccination. Preemptive use of vaccines for diseases currently not in Australia—for example, lumpy skin disease and foot and mouth disease—can have major implications for Australia's favorable disease-free status and therefore significant impacts on trade.

For lumpy skin disease, it is primarily a mechanically transmitted vector-borne disease, so very different from foot and mouth disease, as it is spread by insects such as biting flies, mosquitoes and ticks. In the case of a limited disease outbreak, a containment zone may be established around the areas where the outbreak is occurring, with the purpose of maintaining the disease-free status of the rest of the country outside that containment zone.

So New South Wales DPI and LLS are always working closely together on operational preparedness for a possible emergency animal disease incursion, with the current focus on foot and mouth disease and lumpy skin disease. DPI's role is developing and testing New South Wales plans under AUSVETPLAN, contributing to national policy, coordinating preparedness activities with other agencies and jurisdictions to achieve consistency and coherence.

We work with LLS to provide engagement and extension materials to producers and landholders to assist them to understand and prepare for possible emergency animal disease incursions, and undertake surveillance activities when needed.

We encourage you to work with your local district vet to develop biosecurity plans, identify reliable information sources, and build your own awareness and preparedness for emergency animal diseases to protect your own livestock, livelihoods and that of your community in Australia.

So that's all from me, thank you. And I'm going to hand over to Mick Elliott to talk about pest animal management.

So good evening. Yes, my name's Mick Elliott. I'm a biosecurity officer for Local Land Services. Myself and a couple of other bios cover the area from just north of Coffs down to Laurieton.

So we'd be the ones that you'd talk to about pest animals right across the board—whether we had an FMD outbreak or just your day-to-day stuff.

So I'm just going to give you a few notes on pest animals, what we can do, how we can go about it, and encourage you to work together. We've already heard that that's a critical thing in any of these outbreaks and any problems—especially with pest animals. If we can work together, if a group of landholders get together, you're going to have way more success.

So as we've heard, feral animals—including feral pigs—can be susceptible to FMD. And right now is the time for livestock producers, landholders to get that plan in place. What are we going to do about pest animals?

Because as I've said, if you're talking to your neighbours and everyone's aware of what's going on, your ability to control pest animals and keep it at a minimum is going to be helpful as you move forward through any sort of outbreak.

The good seasonal conditions that we've seen—so good seasonal conditions haven't been terrific—but the amount of moisture that's been about, pigs have loved it. So something like pigs have moved into areas that they've never been before.

So we have a lot of people out there with confusion about, "I've never had pigs, I don't know how to go about it." So that's when you come and talk to us. And even if you haven't got pigs and you think you might get them or you know that they're up the road, come and have a chat. We can work out a way so that you can prepare yourself for anything that comes onto your plates.

Interestingly enough, with a feral pig outbreak, you need to control somewhere around 80% of those pigs to get that population going down—and that's extremely difficult. So the sooner you get onto them, the easier it is, the quicker success rate you're going to get, and the better success rate you're going to get.

And one of the things with any pest animal is that not one thing will work. You'll hear a lot of people talk about, "I don't worry so much about the pigs because I don't mind shooting them. I don't mind—I've got a cousin who comes up and chases dogs, uses the dog to chase them and he keeps them under control."

The problem is, with any pest animal, if you rely on one control method, you will fail. You have to use as many control methods as you can to keep that population under control.

Because the facts are that any sort of pest animal—other than on small islands—are extremely difficult to eradicate and keep the population down, which is what we aim for all the time.

So what do we do?

Well, it's interesting. You know, you say we actively monitor the breeding activity, the sightings, our environmental impacts. And some people say, "Well, what are you doing monitoring?" But that's critical to know where we would throw resources if there was an outbreak of, for example, foot and mouth disease.

So if we don't know that there's pigs on your place or we don't know that there's a pest animal on your place that might carry foot and mouth, we're not going to be prepared in your area. So that's why it's critical for you to tell us what's on your place.

We respond to requests for assistance to alleviate impacts, and we get to work out times of year where impacts are greatest. Wild dogs—we've got them down pretty well on the money now as far as when the best time to do control.

And that comes from you people telling us about what's happening on your place and the success you've had or the failures you've had. That's how we learn about this stuff.

So it says specialist advice on control techniques—yep, we can do that. We can give you the options because some of them aren't going to work on your place and some will.

We supply training. That training is free. For a lot of those cards, we have an online course now to get your chemical card—that can be done at your own leisure online. Or we do have face-to-face meetings again now.

And we supply poison baits, which are free. So there's not a lot of excuses out there not to get involved in something that we're doing or we want to do for you.

We definitely coordinate those programs. As I said before about getting landholders together, we aim to get other public land managers involved so that we get a cross-tenure approach to pest animals. Because pest animals don't care about fences. They don't care about borders.

Importantly, there's a relatively new way of reporting pest animals now—and that's on a FeralScan app. 

You can download that app free on your phone, and it allows you to put information in about what you've seen, when you've seen it. You can actually take a photo and put that on there.

Certainly deer in our area are exploding, and a lot of the information that we're getting now about where we might put those resources in a problem time is based on that information. So that's a free app, it's really easy to use, and importantly all your data is kept private.

So no one else can see if you have put pigs on your place. No one else can see it. We can see it, of course, and we may well be in touch with you to say, "How do you want to go about this? How do you need help for this?"

And most importantly, it's going to help protect our community. Because any of these pest animals, without any FMD, without any lumpy skin, need protection from pest animals because they are out there 24/7 breeding away.

So any of those animals that are in bigger populations—they become explosive very quickly. Smaller populations we can control. Bigger ones—very difficult.

Yeah, so that's sort of the end of the formal presentation.

Emergency animal disease information sessions

Watch the Mid-north Coast Emergency Animal Disease information session presented by district vet Ian Poe.

This presentation was recorded at Wauchope on 17 August to help primary producers recognise the signs of foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy skin disease, and provides advice on prevention.

  • learn more about the current status of foot-and-mouth disease and lumpy skin disease
  • find out how to identify these diseases and know what to do if they suspect cases
  • find out what they can do on your farm
  • hear what Local Land Services does to prevent emergency animal diseases
  • hear about the work of Local Land Services in feral animal control. 
56:25

Scrubbing up on Biosecurity with Pip Courtney

Read transcript
Video transcript

Scrubbing up on Biosecurity with Pip Courtney

Hello, I'm Pip Courtney. I'm the host of the ABC's Landline program, rural current affairs show, which turned 30 last year. I've reported all over rural, regional and remote Australia for Landline for nearly 29 years, and if there's one story I do not want to cover ever, it's foot and mouth disease.

It's a rural reporter's key dread. The second one is reporting on lumpy skin disease.

Now, organizers of this webinar have chosen four experts to cover off on what you all need to know to keep your animals and your industry safe and your communities strong. All four are a reporter's dream—great communicators, they're knowledgeable, they're articulate, and they can talk in clear English.

Now, first up we have the First Assistant Secretary, Biosecurity Animal Division, National Animal Disease Preparedness Coordinator at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry—Dr Chris Parker. I don't know how you get all that on your card, Chris, and your CV is very impressive.

Chris studied as a vet and worked for a number of years in mixed practice in rural WA and South Australia, moved to Melbourne briefly to take up a role as Technical Services Manager with a large ag and veterinary chemical company, then moved back to South Australia to manage and operate a large family farming and grazing property, and then his family moved to Canberra to take a role as a senior political advisor for the Ag Minister in the Howard government.

In 2006, he took up a position in DAFF where he has held a number of roles with biosecurity service delivery and broader departmental policy. He spent 2011 to 2015 in Washington D.C. as the Minister Counsellor for Ag at the Australian Embassy, and in 2017 Chris was appointed CEO of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority and is currently working as that very long title I mentioned before.

Chris, you have 10 minutes—and he owes me a bottle of bubbles if he goes over time.

Everyone, thank you Pip. I appreciate the introduction, and the simplest way of fitting it on a card is not to have a card, so that's the way it works for me. But yes, it is a long title.

I think essentially what we might talk about tonight is the history of a little bit of the spread of these two diseases, and then we might talk about the response from the Australian Government and how we're looking to keep these diseases out and also prepare for any possibility of them entering the country.

So if we look at when we first started to become concerned about these diseases as they started to spread through Asia—and certainly by March when lumpy skin disease was detected in Indonesia—we started to become really, I think, quite alert to the prospect of these diseases.

This was further exacerbated, I suppose, when foot and mouth disease was diagnosed in Indonesia in May. So we had March—LSD, May—foot and mouth disease, and then in July foot and mouth disease was confirmed in the island of Bali.

Now, the reason that we'd be concerned about Bali, I think most people on the webinar would know, is that there is a large movement of people, particularly tourists, between Bali and Australia. A lot of them are spending quite short periods of time in Bali and then coming back down straight back to work.

So really, from our perspective, the threat assessment of those—or if you like, the risk of those two diseases—changes quite significantly as they move closer. Also, the risk where you have an active outbreak, where you'll see large amounts of virus in both the population of susceptible animals but also within the environment, is also of concern. And then when you've got the movement of people and goods between those two countries, that's also of concern—so that increased risk.

So really what we look at is a three-pronged approach. And the three-pronged approach is about a pre-border response, a border response, and then a post-border response.

The pre-border response is all about doing work in Indonesia to assist them to manage particularly foot and mouth disease. That's their focus. Their focus is around food security.

And it's worth just reflecting briefly on the differences for us with this disease. So in Indonesia, the issue is food security. So they're not going to go through a wholesale slaughter campaign to get rid of this disease. For us, our interest is this is a disease of trade. If we get it, it shuts markets—and that's a real issue for us. Whereas food security is not quite as important to us because we are obviously a very food-secure nation.

So just that prism means that they manage it in a slightly different way, and we shouldn't necessarily be overly critical of the manner in which they're doing it. They've got a very strong focus on vaccination. We've got a very strong focus on supporting them in that.

We've provided a million doses of vaccine. We're about to provide another three million doses of vaccine, all of which contributes to them being able to manage the situation as they go forward.

They are focused on controlling it in Bali for two reasons. The first is that they're host of G20 this year, and G20 is going to be on Bali. So they would like the disease situation to be under control with world leaders visiting and being able to showcase the island.

They also recognize it's a significant tourist destination, and they also want it clean for that reason.

So we've been working very closely with them around vaccine. We've been working very closely with them without providing technical support for managing the epidemiology around this disease and managing certainly some of the issues around how they might put vaccine into the field, and also providing assistance in training of those doing vaccine, those distributing the vaccine.

They have vaccinated over 2 million animals at the moment, and what we've seen since June—where we saw a peak of infections—we've now seen a plateau of infections and even a little bit of decline.

There's also been a number of places where the disease was—provinces where the disease was—where they haven't seen any active cases for up to a week. So all of those are positive signs that it is being controlled in Indonesia.

We then have the work we're doing at the border, and the government significantly upgraded resources at the border, including sanitation mats, including biosecurity risk zones—all those sorts of things to ensure that we're managing the risk of both passengers, but more importantly the products they might be bringing into the country, which are FMD-susceptible products or products that can carry FMD, should I say.

All of that work has involved a significant uplift at the border, both in personnel and investment in time and effort. And we are finding, particularly for those flights from Indonesia, we're seeing very high compliance rates amongst those folk who are coming in from Indonesia.

I might remind you, the vast majority of them are Australian citizens, and we've been spending a lot of time with education—both as they leave the country, as in-country, and then as they're coming back in—plus all the fines that are in place to manage anything that they might bring in, plus all inspections, the dogs—all those sorts of things are really important as part of that.

Then of course we've got a post-border response. And by that I mean, what are we doing in the marketplace?

In the marketplace, there's two things we're doing. The first thing we're doing is we're testing any products that we seize at the border to see whether they may be carrying FMD. And we found one of those cases where there was—that's all treated under a biosecurable manner and there's no great drama with that.

We've also been doing some testing of product on supermarket shelves. Obviously, we trade with nations, some of which have foot and mouth disease.

 

But we have our measures in place to ensure any of those products would be safe. So, for example, you might have a meat product that is canned and retorted—so it's heat treated, so it kills the virus. But part of our assurance mechanisms to ensure that food or cargo coming into the country is safe, we do that testing to make sure that we're in a position to be able to go—those measures are working at the border. We're not seeing what is of concern there at the border.

So really, those three responses are a key component of the way that we are keeping the disease out but also preparing.

And then finally, there's a whole lot of work that's gone into preparation. One of the really important things that I think the government's done is it's been able to—for the first time, and this is probably because we have a Minister for Agriculture, Federal Minister for Agriculture, who's also the Minister for Emergency Management—and I think what that's done is been able to link those two really key components.

And a task force was recently reported, went for four weeks, did a whole lot of investigation into the system and then reported to the Minister. And I think what we've found really importantly is, for the first time in my involvement with agriculture—and I think I've been involved probably even longer than Pip has as far as engagement with agriculture goes—for the first time certainly, I think we've seen one of the great connections between industry and state government and federal government.

And what we're now seeing is that broader linkage into those emergency management personnel we may need if we're able to face a horrible disease situation like this. And that's the first time I think I've seen those really strong linkages going into the police force, into emergency services, into a whole range of personnel including military.

The military actually now doing preparatory work around this space where they weren't before. And I think what we're seeing now is that where we do need to put measures in place if something wants to happen, we now have a very clear understanding across government and emergency services about how that may be implemented to assist what I call the biological response.

So the response of vets going and testing animals and treating animals—or unfortunately maybe euthanizing animals—those sorts of things. And also assisting in stock standstills, all those sorts of issues where really we, as maybe I suppose veterinarians and that side of things, are not as equipped as well as some of our emergency services folk.

So Pip, I might leave it there I think and let other folk talk about their components. I trust that was under the 10—I didn't time myself. I hope I don't owe you a bottle of champagne, and you seemed a bit reticent about providing me with a bottle if I was under 10 minutes. So we might leave it to others.

But thank you for the opportunity to speak and lovely to meet folk, even if it's virtually, and look forward to questions. Thank you.

Thank you Dr Chris Parker. And yeah, sorry I didn't time it so you got off lightly. I was warned that you might get a little bit over.

And thanks for that federal government perspective, because up next with the state government perspective is Dr Elizabeth Brandon, and she's the Manager of Animal Biosecurity Preparedness and Response at the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries.

She also has a very impressive CV. Elise became a district vet in the Young area in 2003. During her time as a district vet, she worked on an equine influenza outbreak both at a control centre level as well as a local producer level in the red zone near Young.

She also experienced firsthand the impact of avian influenza on district poultry farms in 2013. These experiences led her to her current role as the Manager, Animal Biosecurity Preparedness and Response with the New South Wales DPI.

Under her guidance, the DPI team is working on ensuring that New South Wales preparedness plans are well considered across the spectrum of alignment to the national strategy, aligned to New South Wales legislation, and can be operationalized so that New South Wales could get the best outcome possible for the ag sector and communities in New South Wales.

Dr Liz Brandon, your time starts now.

Thank you.

All right, well thank you everyone. Like Chris, I appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to you this evening and just let you know a little bit about sort of how this all works in terms of a response at the state level. And this is pretty applicable across any of the jurisdictions or territories—so states and territories.

But as you'll see, I'll try and outline how that actually works.

So the first thing to understand, I guess, is that emergency animal diseases are defined. There are pretty specific lists, and they're specific to diseases that have significant impacts on livestock. And that can include the potential for increased livestock deaths, but also things like production losses.

It also has the ability—we have diseases that impact on human health and potentially the environment. So they're defined by international and national levels as to their importance and their impact on our world stage as well as to us here in Australia if we don't have them.

And the long-term effect, of course, is not only is it the individual producers who are impacted if it happens to them specifically or they're impacted by the control measures, but we know that it has a flow-on effect that goes to the local region if it's a small enough one. But in this case, with foot and mouth or some of the bigger ones that are threatening our shores, you know, the impact will be—as Chris said—a national one. And that's the aim of the game, is to try and minimize that impact.

We have a unique opportunity in Australia. We have an agreement called the Emergency Animal Disease Response Agreement that is quite special in that it is a formally agreed decision-making tool, if you like, and it provides certainty for our management of emergency responses right from day one.

So right now, if we were unfortunate enough to have a disease outbreak that was one of our emergency animal diseases, the states and territories and the impacted industries already know that we can just go ahead and start the response and implement our plans because the cost sharing, the financial backing and all of those processes and frameworks are pre-arranged. And that provides a huge amount of certainty in terms of how Australia in the animal world can respond.

So what actually happens?

If someone happens to see something unusual—so this could be a producer, it could be a private vet, could be a district vet, could be a truck driver—anyone involved in the industry basically has an obligation. So if they report that, there's an investigation that causes enough concern through the disease space.

Then normally what happens is it will make its way through the chain to the Chief Veterinary Officer of the state. So for us, that's Sarah Britton here in New South Wales. And if it's really significant enough and there's concerns that there's clinical signs, multiple animals, history is all matching and looking quite concerning, then she will actually inform the Australian Chief Veterinary Officer at that level.

And from there, that is what triggers the sort of framework and that joint action plan, if you like, of the states and territories—both at the veterinary level in the first instances, but also industry representatives are on all of those levels of both the technical review of the proposed response depending on the scenario, and then the formal agreement to the National Management Group, which is where, you know, the formal stuff happens basically in terms of kicking off the agreement and the general strategic plan is endorsed.

What is happening on the ground though, however, is you've also got simultaneously New South Wales implementing tracing and history gathering on the property in question. Even at a level of suspicion, we will already be implementing that at the disease investigation level just to cover the bases.

We do this routinely, and Scott will tell you a bit more about what happens at the district vet level, but this is done all the time for small and minor and anything that looks risky. Basically, that's part of our surveillance program that is occurring at the same time as well, and that's backed up by our Emergency Animal Disease Hotline—which hopefully you've all got plugged into your phones, which Scott's probably going to give a plug, but I will too.

So please add 1800 675 888 to your phones, because if you get a situation where you're just not sure what's happening, we would much prefer that you put in a call—either to that hotline number, which is manned 24/7, or in fact to a district vet or a private vet if that's your preference—just to ask the questions. Because it's better to ask the question and get it investigated than to leave yourself wondering.

So the surveillance is ongoing as well. That occurs through the infected property. There may be ongoing surveillance on that. There may be investigations on the neighbouring properties. The tracing may identify animal movements that would then require us to go and have a look at those properties. And the movement restrictions are happening at the same time.

So that top layer of surveillance, tracing and movement restrictions—that's all augmented once we've got confirmation, and potentially even at a high level of suspicion at the state level.

The further bottom line—the vaccination, decontamination and yes, unfortunately, destruction and disposal—depending on the disease response strategy. And those things come, but they come within days. So they're not instantaneously happening, but they certainly will follow in quick succession, depending again on the disease response.

So for us, the plan for the foot and mouth disease response policy—that's... So all of these diseases are publicly available response plans. Sorry, not the diseases themselves—the strategies that Australia will implement for them are all publicly available on the Animal Health Australia website if you want to go and have a look yourself later on.

And we call them AUSVETPLAN just to signify the Australian Veterinary Plan. So FMD is currently being reviewed to update it to the most recent known global situation. It's got a full front end-to-end response review, considering the learnings of others.

But our principal strategy in Australia, as Chris mentioned, is to try and eradicate it as quickly as possible, with the intention of ideally without vaccinations so that we can get return to our trade situations and minimize the impact on the industry—both at a local level but all the way through the chain to the Australian end.

And the principles around this stuff are the same regardless of the disease in most cases, and that's about preventing exposure. So your movement restrictions—putting limits on where things and the high-risk products are moving—is what's involved in that.

Preventing exposure may also involve your vaccination depending on the disease. And then, of course, the destruction and disposal component is about decreasing the virus load in those animals. Because any animal that's infected with these diseases is often a high shedder of virus.

Most of us now have a better understanding of that from COVID, and that's no one's fault, but it's just the nature of viruses in particular.

So the challenge with lumpy skin disease—it again is another AUSVETPLAN that we have, and it's also been reviewed and recently published in its most current form—is its vector-borne.

So the challenge with that one is a little bit more complex than foot and mouth disease, simply because we have an unknown—sorry, not an unknown but an unquantifiable or uncontrollable vector species that's moving around with this one.

So we're more likely to prefer to use vaccination in this case, simply because it will allow us to control that spread impact of where we can control it with movement of animals. Specifically in a vector disease, you actually have to come at it a little bit differently in terms of managing—how do you create that buffer of immune animals if you've got insects that are flying about?

So you've got to try and get in front of them. So it's a slightly different response strategy, but the principles are certainly very much the same.

Just a bit more about quarantine and the old quarantine that everybody sort of thinks about, and the movement controls more preferably. So the idea is again, as we said, to try and minimize that spread and reduce the exposure to susceptible species.

So you might be the infected property, which is your initiating one, and there could be multiple infected properties as time goes on in the initial parts of a response. But you can also then be a trace or a suspect property.

A suspect property is one that actually may not have any linkages at all to an infected property, but it has susceptible animals and they are showing clinical signs that are consistent with that disease. They may also be directly linked, but in most cases that's the difference between a trace property—they most likely don't have clinical disease showing, but they've had a linkage through a movement to an infected property—whereas suspect properties very specifically are designated because they are showing clinical signs.

So they're a bit more of a higher priority to make sure that we manage those first because of the little risk that they might become infected on further testing.

The sidelines—the black text of ARPs and PORs—don't get caught up in the language and the acronyms, because I know we're very bad at putting it all out there. But essentially, those are the properties that have no known connection at this point in time to an infected property. So they're just the farms that are sitting in those locations, and they're captured up and they are impacted by the fact that they're either within the restricted area or within the control area.

Simply because the point of the restricted area is that's the known infected zone, if you like, and so we try and put quite tight restrictions in there so that we're actually minimizing the risk of animals moving in and out that might be infected. So it's trying to capture that and contain that spread concern.

And the control area then is essentially that defined area around which we use to create the buffer. So we don't believe there's infection in the control area when we put it in place—and they do vary over time—but essentially that acts as your buffer.

And then you've got the rest of the area, which would be the outside area.

But the main thing, I guess, in an instance of foot and mouth disease—and possibly lumpy skin as well—on the first day of a confirmation, it is likely that control area will be defined by the state border. So it will impact on everyone in New South Wales initially until we get a bit more of an understanding of actually what's happening with the disease and how far it's actually potentially spread.

So sadly, everyone gets some skin in the game on this one, simply because the movement restrictions will impact on everyone initially. And then over time, as we learn more about the response, they shrink so that we can get ourselves back into a proof-of-freedom phase where we can start trading again and proving that we're still clean and green—we just had a bit of a blip.

So what's New South Wales been doing specifically?

In fact, New South Wales and most other jurisdictions have been preparing for a foot and mouth disease response for the last 20 years. When the UK got hit in 2001, most states and jurisdictions in Australia started to look at what would we do here in Australia.

So 2001 versus 2022—there's a long time, there's lots of learnings that have happened. The UK unfortunately had another outbreak in 2011. However, they had a vast improvement, so we can learn from what other countries have done.

Japan has also had an outbreak, and that's why we have continual renewal of our processes. So we've already got an initial Emergency Animal Disease Response Plan—so that document that goes up to those decision-making bodies at the state and industry levels to kick it off—that document is already prepared for New South Wales.

What needs to be added is the context of the situation at hand. But in terms of what things we'll implement—in terms of surveillance strategies, tracing processes, how we will manage the livestock destruction and containment issues—that's all captured in that document. And it is set up as a framework.

So again, every state and territory has similar things in their response plans, and that's why they can all be aligned at that national level if need be.

The other thing that underpins that Emergency Animal Disease Response Plan and the agreements behind it is having your legal instruments in place. So again, New South Wales already has these pre-prepared. They will need contextualizing to the event if it happens, but essentially the bones of what's required is already in them so that we're not having to try and scramble and develop a really comprehensive legal document just as something happens.

We've also been working with police and Transport New South Wales and a lot of the other agencies—so the folks that we help out in droughts and floods—they're now looking at how they can help us out, as Chris said. So we're working with all of them in terms of how would we implement operationally at the ground level our national livestock standstill to make that as smooth as possible in that situation.

Similarly, with the destruction and disposal, there's obviously a huge challenge in that space, and we want to make sure that we don't end up with an environmental issue at the end of it if we can avoid it. So we're working quite closely—and have been for a number of years now—with the Environmental Protection Agencies to figure out what's the best way to manage a very bad situation.

Fundamental to all of this is making sure that we've actually got response messages—both what can we do now to raise awareness, and things like this webinar and everyone coming along is much appreciated because it helps spread the word of where we're at.

But similarly, we've also got messages that we know we'll need for the minute that someone has a confirmed infection, whether that's in New South Wales or in another jurisdiction. So that's already prepared, and we're looking to share those now across jurisdictions so that everybody can see whether we're aligned.

Because as we've all learned with COVID, we need to have a consistent message so that we're not actually confusing each other. If you live close to a border, for example, you want to make sure you're getting the same message from both sides of the border ideally, rather than getting a potentially conflicting message.

And the other thing we've been constantly doing is exercising and testing these scenarios—both with industry partners but also the other jurisdictions, particularly where we've got known movements of livestock. So in our case in New South Wales, we move a lot of stock between Queensland and Victoria and us in particular.

So we know that we've got issues there that we need to manage and make sure that we can do that as smoothly as possible without having a big impact if we can avoid it where there's minimal risk.

And I'm sure, as Scott will talk about a bit more, we are always on the lookout from a surveillance perspective. You know, we spend time in saleyards, we do on-farm surveillance with private vets and district vets in New South Wales, and we are in contact with the abattoirs and the other industries as well just to make sure everybody's got their eyes out and having a look.

Because that's the best way that we could actually get on top of these things early and make sure that we've got the best opportunity to eradicate—is everybody having a good look at what's going on on their farm and raising the flag if it looks a bit odd.

That's it for me, Pip.

Thank you, Dr Brandon. Now we're going to our third vet for the night, which is Dr Scott Ison from Local Land Services.

My cat just causing some drama—sorry about that, Scott. Sorry about my badly behaved cat, but as you—as a vet—know, there's not much you can do about that. So would you like to have your 10 minutes?

Thank you.

So this evening I just wanted to talk to everyone about what you can do on your farm in regards to foot and mouth disease and lumpy skin disease prevention and preparedness. So this is the "what are the practical steps that you can do right now on your property."

So the first thing we want everyone to do is know the signs of foot and mouth disease and know what to do when you suspect foot and mouth disease or lumpy skin disease on your property. It's really important that everyone working with livestock knows the signs and knows what to do if they suspect the diseases.

FMD can infect all cloven-hooved animals including cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, alpaca and deer. The key signs are lameness, blisters, erosions, drooling and production losses.

Similarly, with lumpy skin disease—it only affects cattle and buffalo—and the skin lesions are the key sign. With lumpy skin disease, only about 50% of infected cattle can show signs in some situations, but you will also notice production losses, fever—the cattle can get quite sick.

So what do you do if you suspect one of these diseases or any emergency animal disease? Reporting immediately is key to diagnosing and containing early cases.

You might find it easiest to call your district veterinarian directly rather than the 1800 number. So if you've got those details for your local district veterinarian, you can call them directly and have a chat to them.

I've got a QR code on the page there now that takes you to a website with a list of all of our district veterinarians across New South Wales with their location and phone number, so you can get in contact and get to know your local district vet.

If you can't get a hold of your district vet—and sometimes they could be out doing specific work, doing a disease investigation—there is always the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline, which Liz alluded to before. So that number is 1800 675 888. It's a 24-hour service and that will get you through to a government veterinarian seven days a week. Someone will triage your call and a field vet will respond as necessary.

And remember, if you suspect an emergency and you can't get your district vet or a private vet, you have to call the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline immediately.

Next, I just wanted to talk about registrations and record keeping. I think we've all got a pretty good understanding with biosecurity through COVID about the importance of tracing and understanding where a disease might have come from to infect someone and who else they might have infected, etc.

So there are two key pieces of information here:

Annual Land and Stock Returns—anyone who's a Local Land Services customer, anyone who has livestock in New South Wales, has to complete their annual land and stock return before the 31st of August each year. So we've just gone past that deadline. If you didn't get your annual land and stock return in, you can still contact your local office or go on the website and submit your annual land and stock return.

NLIS Compliance—being compliant with the National Livestock Identification System requirements.

So there's a few key steps here. For anyone that's got livestock—identifiable livestock through any sort of livestock—you need to have a PIC (Property Identification Code). You can get that from your Local Land Services office.

If you've got cattle, sheep or goats, you need to become LPA accredited as well to be able to sell those. You can order an NVD book. Then there are a few other steps there. If you get in contact with your Local Land Services office, they can help you through all of those steps listed there to make sure you're compliant.

And the key thing is—anytime you move livestock onto your property, you need to update the NLIS database.

You can also perform a PIC reconciliation for cattle to make sure any cattle that are currently on your property are listed on your property, and you haven't got any extra cattle listed on your property that aren't there.

I did liken it to a stock tag, I suppose.

The next thing I wanted to talk about is swill feeding, which we call prohibited pig feed. So that's meat or meat products or any imported milk products—any feeds that have been contaminated by those types of products, depending on contact with those types of products.

Swill feeding or prohibited pig feed is the most likely entry point for a foot and mouth disease into Australia. And the key is, if illegally imported meat or milk products come into Australia and are consumed by pigs, that's the most likely way that we could get foot and mouth disease into Australia.

Kitchen scraps are okay if they haven't been in contact with pig feed, but if it's been in contact, you can't feed it to your pigs. Another potential source of swill feeding is feral pigs, so it's important that you fence rubbish tips and make sure you're in control of feral pigs and your rubbish tips.

We could talk more about feral pigs later on.

Lumpy skin disease—a key transmission point is insect vectors. So if you're looking at protecting your cattle from lumpy skin disease, you can look into controlling biting flies. Mosquitoes and ticks as well can play a role.

Integrated mosquito management is key, and there are a few good resources out there that talk about integrated mosquito management. It's about the three stages: monitoring larvae and adults, managing the environment, and chemical control.

You can also quarantine introduced cattle just to check that they don't show any signs of lumpy skin disease or other diseases.

A key thing that you can do on your property is farm biosecurity planning. So a lot of people will have done a farm biosecurity plan with LPA accreditation—that became mandatory in 2017. Now is a good time to review your current plan, or if you haven't got a farm biosecurity plan, to create one.

It's important to consider the pathways for disease to enter your farm and what measures you can put in place to prevent that disease coming onto your farm.

So if we're talking about foot and mouth disease and lumpy skin disease specifically, you might want to consider where animals have come from and if you need to quarantine them, asking people if they've been overseas recently or if they've visited other farms.

If someone's been overseas to a country with foot and mouth disease, you might ask them not to come onto your property at all. If you have visitors, contractors or agents coming in a vehicle, you might ask them to leave their vehicle at the house or on the road and travel in your car through the property.

There are some decontamination guides available, but some of the important key factors are making sure you remove any mud from boots and cars, having clean clothes and boots, using soaps and disinfectants. Give everything a good clean with a scrubbing brush and check the labels for disinfectants.

Going to the farm biosecurity website, which I've listed down the bottom there, you can get a more comprehensive process, and there are some good decontamination guides available through there as well that are full of practical on-farm tips.

Some people might wish to implement a biosecurity management plan. So that's reasonably new legislation—in 2019 it was introduced into New South Wales. Basically, if you have a plan that meets the requirements—and they're listed on the DPI website—and includes approved signage, you have extra protection against unauthorized entry onto your farm.

So people that come onto your farm and don't follow your farm biosecurity management plan, they may get a $1,000 on-the-spot fine. But there's also a fine listed in a court order of $220,000 for individuals and $440,000 for corporations.

And finally, I just wanted to quickly talk through what might happen with an emergency animal disease investigation. So our district vets in Local Land Services are out there doing these on farms every day.

Basically, if someone's got a disease in their livestock that they're not sure about, they might call a private vet or they might call a district vet. I'm just going to go through the process now—what happens if they would call a district vet.

So basically, the district vet visits the farm and does an investigation. They're well-trained in recognizing some of the common livestock diseases and some of the most important ones. They'll collect samples and send them to a laboratory if necessary.

Testing for EADs might be included, and also testing for other possible diseases. Then the owner will get advice back on what the final diagnosis is. So the district vet will let them know if they can exclude certain exotic diseases, for example, but also what the final diagnosis is.

And the key here is—if you've got unwell stock, get them investigated on-farm by a district vet. Don't send them to the saleyard. We don't want potential lumpy skin disease or foot and mouth disease cases.

And that's it for me, Pip.

Scott—very interesting. Next up we have our last speaker, our Local Land Services Senior Biosecurity Officer, Mick Elliott. And I believe Mick's going to touch on that very important issue of feral animals, including pigs.

He's the Senior Biosecurity Officer. He's worked with the North Coast Local Land Services for eight years, assisting landholders with pest animal control, and he's played a significant role in the control of feral deer and horses across the North Coast and is highly experienced in trapping and baiting feral animals.

So Mick, I might send you all the Landline viewers' complaints about feral horses to you.

Thank you.

Prior to that, he spent 10 years in the Pilbara working with the Department of Ag controlling pest animals including wild dogs, feral donkeys, wild horses, and was a team member in the WA section of the National Feral Camel Reduction Program.

Yeah, so I'm just going to run through some of the challenges around these introduced diseases in regard to pest animal management and the importance of reporting these pests.

Some feral animals will be considered vectors in the spread of introduced disease like foot and mouth if they were to get in, and the movement of these ferals would allow the disease to spread quite quickly.

So livestock producers should ensure measures are in place, as far as possible, to prevent feral animals from coming into contact with their stock. And also having—or being part of—a feral animal control plan will greatly help that.

Part of a control plan will be of great assistance—probably the best assistance that we can actually involve ourselves in—because that's telling us what's going on in and around us and allows us to pick the techniques for control that will suit a particular person or area.

We look at that slide there with feral pigs, and it's important to remember that for any sort of population reduction with feral pigs, we need to aim for 80% control of that population to ensure that we've got a downward trend.

And you can imagine that the sooner you get on the population when it's low, the better chance you have of controlling that infestation.

So I'll just move to the second slide.

Given the season that we've been seeing in most of—certainly New South Wales at the minute—feral pig populations have spread very quickly and into many areas that we've never seen them in before. Not only into pastoral-type areas but also horticultural holdings like macadamias have seen feral pigs moving through.

And that gives them access to lots of different holdings. Although you might have stock on your holding and there's a macadamia place next door, the fact that the feral pigs can move through both of those quite easily means that any spread can happen quite quickly.

Feral pigs are capable of having a number of litters a year, so obviously their population will explode. So again, the importance of establishing control when numbers are relatively low gives the best chance of success.

Just the next slide.

Feral deer—another pest animal that has exploded recently in New South Wales. And I know up on the North Coast here we are seeing them pop up into areas that are surprising almost daily. It's recognized as the fastest growing pest animal we have in New South Wales.

They compete with livestock for grazing resources, can have a range of environmental impacts—not only as far as water quality reduction but also browsing and trampling of vegetation, including threatened vegetation. And of course, will be seen as a vector for foot and mouth.

So what can we do about it?

If we move to the next slide—the management of all these feral animals is dependent upon landholders discussing with each other, forming those plans as we said, and LLS can assist in these sorts of things.

We've got to remember that it's not possible to eradicate all pest animals—it's just not going to happen. What we have to aim for is reduce numbers, keep those numbers low. And this sort of thing is assisted by pest animal control plans.

A personal control plan on all places would aim for cross-tenure control, so that drags in all land managers—working with them, using all available techniques.

Part of the challenge certainly on the North Coast is absentee landholders and the grey nomads not being aware that they have pest animals on their holdings. So this is where a local plan can really assist. It can identify the areas where pest animals are and may be accessing absentee landholders' properties, and efforts can then be made to identify these landholders and get them involved in a plan or allow access for control.

Your local biosecurity officers can and will assist in the development of a plan, will give advice on the control techniques that can be used, and provide the relevant training—and in many cases, supply appropriate poison bait.

And just a final slide there—reporting is one of the major things that we would like to push out to people.

f we don't know they're there, then we can't assist. Certainly, we rely on your reports of pest animals to assist us in the development of control options in different areas. And with most pest animals, the available control techniques are always going to revolve around trapping, shooting, and the use of—where possible—poison baits.

In the case of feral pigs, for instance, a relatively new bait—Hog-Gone—has proven successful in lots of areas. It specifically targets feral pigs and can be used as a technique, as well as the others, to assist in dropping those populations.

Group programs have proven very successful with products like Hog-Gone, and this comes from reporting of those pest animals so that we can involve landholders in and around the ones that have reported those pests.

Reporting feral animals helps us to plot things like numbers, their movement, expansion, and indeed can assist in the allocation of resources in the event of an outbreak.

You can report pest animal sightings to your local LLS office or via FeralScan. FeralScan is a really handy community-based reporting system—an app that can be downloaded on your phone. It's important to remember all of the information on that is private, and that can be shared with a government agency like LLS who can assist with control and with advice on where you go from there.

Thanks, Pip—that's me.

Thanks, Mick. Thanks, Mick—I think I might have a feral cat or two here for you if you'd sort out.

That's really great, clear information, and it's pretty scary about the explosion of pigs just at a time we don't need them all over the place and how much they amplify the disease.

Well, we have time for some questions, and here's one that's come through which we think maybe Scott is best to answer:

"There have never been any cattle brought onto my property and many tags lost on the property. Why should I complete a PIC reconciliation?"

Yeah, thanks Pip. So it sounds like this person doesn't have cattle on their property, but the NLIS database might say that they do. So it really comes down to accurate information for tracing.

If we get a disease outbreak and the database tells us that certain cattle are on someone's property, we would have to contact that person and find out where those cattle are, where they were previously, how they got there. And if the information was false, it just means a lot of ringing around to find out where those cattle actually are.

So by ensuring that the information for your property on the database is correct, it's going to save a lot of extra ringing around and trying to find the right information during an outbreak.

And Chris, if you could answer this one:

"If there is a 72-hour national livestock standstill, does that mean cattle en route to or from farms or abattoirs or feedlots—what happens to them? What happens to abattoirs? I mean, it sounds like a recipe for chaos. Do you think people understand what the implications are—that if it's found in Western Australia, there's a national lockdown?"

Well, I think people may not understand that the best way to minimize the spread of this disease is to lock down the movement of stock. And as soon as it's found, we lock down the movement of stock.

One of the reasons also for the stock standstill is it's unlikely—given experience overseas—that the first case you'll find will be the index case. So there'll be other cases around almost certainly that need to be dealt with. So it's not always going to be, "Oh, that's where it was found is where it first came into the country."

So that's the major reason behind the stock standstill.

There are provisions that allow the movement of stock through to the end of their journey. And for those stock that would be on—and I actually was over in Bendigo at the conference talking to truckers about this—and I think there's a good understanding in industry that those animals will be moved through to their destination.

There's nothing stopping animals that are in lairage in abattoirs from being slaughtered into the normal supply chain, and I would expect that that would happen—although it would be challenging, obviously, to sell the product—but at least those animals would be managed in that way.

Saleyards are a little more problematic, but all the big saleyards around the country certainly have plans for dealing with this sort of thing.

So Pip, there's obviously a range of scenarios that have played out. A lot of them have already been gamed, if you like, and a lot of them have already been thought through. And I think it's important that people understand that a lot of this preparatory work has already been done.

But certainly, as far as stock moving—yes, there's a standstill, but if you're on a truck, you go to your destination. And that's a well-understood principle.

And everybody can have a crack at this: If landholders could do one thing tomorrow to help, what would it be?

Can I go first, Alice?

Yeah, I'll have a go. But I think the fundamental thing for producers or anyone that has livestock is to, one, know what the threats are. So I think that's a pretty big tick box for most people, and certainly the focus on this call—obviously you're in the know because you're here and you're wanting to know what the situation is and what you can do.

But you just need to be monitoring your stock. So the more often you look and know what is normal for you, the more likely you'll pick up something that is not normal.

I guess, you know, we've probably got a little bit out of the habit in some cases. You know, intensive industries—they deal with their stock and they're contained in a way that they look at them every single day. So that level of monitoring is quite high. But when you're talking about extensive industries, it may be less simply because of logistics. But as often as you can look at them and be watching for those clinical signs—that's the key.

And what would you say, Mick? What could landholders do tomorrow?

Report pest animals. It's the starting point for any sort of control and any sort of resource allocation in the event of an outbreak.

Okay. Scott?

Thanks, Pip. I think after people have done those couple of things—it's very important—it's about talking to your neighbours, talking to everyone else that you know that has livestock, and making sure if you've got any more questions, you ask an expert.

If anyone's got any more questions, get to know your Local Land Services office and your district vet. See if you need to pull some more information together through a workshop or something.

Okay, well it sounds like we'll return to old-fashioned shepherding and seeing your stock every day if you can.

I need to let everybody know that basically LLS—there is no question, it's an old journal saying—there is no question that's too simple, too silly or too dumb. They want—if you have a question, ask it.

And we have another one coming in here.

If you're looking for more information about your biosecurity responsibilities, the LLS website is lls.nsw.gov.au, and the two important contacts to take down, keep close, keep them near you—in phones, in sheds and offices, have them in the car—have these numbers:

  • 1300 795 299
  • Emergency Animal Disease Watch Hotline: 1800 675 888

And there is a question about compensation:

"If there's an outbreak and a landholder is impacted and quarantined, is there some government compensation in place for destroyed animals?"

And now Liz, that's going to you.

 Yes, so there is an agreed valuation and compensation structure in place. The jurisdiction legislation allows for the compensation, but again under the AUSVETPLAN structure, we've actually had a good go at thinking about how this could be done fairly.

And again, just while we've got an opportunity, we're reviewing the valuation and compensation manual to make sure—particularly around sheep and cattle industries and goats—that the valuation tables in there are actually reflective of current market prices.

So animals that are destroyed as a result of infection or through an order—so if you're one of the impacted properties and that is the plan that's best determined for you, that the animals need to go—those animals will be compensated for, and they'll be valued prior to destruction.

The valuation is based on the market levels for the two weeks prior to the response. So obviously, we know—we've talked about it already—that our markets are going to be pre-damaged by the time we get a confirmed infection. So those market values are actually calculated on the pre-response market values.

Well, we don't have any more questions, so we will share this recording and the slides with everybody who registered.

So get those contacts down. Make sure your family and staff don’t have to rustle through 50,000 papers in four filing cabinets to find that number.

Good night everybody, and good on you for showing up for something that is so important.

Thanks everyone.

Webinar: Scrubbing up on biosecurity 

Are you on small acreage, a hobby farmer or living away from your rural property? Did you know you have an obligation to help protect our country from emergency animal diseases, like foot-and-mouth and lumpy skin disease?

In this webinar, Pip Courtney Rural Reporter and host of ABC's rural current affairs program Landline hosted presentations that gave an update on the status of foot-and-mouth and lumpy skin disease around the world, discussed the obligations landholders have around biosecurity, and talked about what would happen if a disease incursion should occur.  

They also discussed the role of pest animal management and provide essential information on what to look for and what to do if you suspect a disease in your animals. This webinar was held on 20 September 2022 and was current at the time of recording. 

Latest Local Land Services updates

Media release

Christmas reminders for pig owners

With Christmas just over two weeks away, many of us are starting to think about what the centrepiece of the all-important Christmas meal will be.
Media release

Feral deer community information sessions

Local Land Services is inviting community members and landholders to attend a feral deer information session to learn more about the growing impact of feral deer in the Coffs Harbour, Orara Valley, Sandy Beach and Woolgoolga areas.
Media release

Landholders in Far West NSW encouraged to consider feral pig strength meat baits

Western Local Land Services is urging landholders in the state’s Far West to consider feral pig strength meat baits in a bid to mitigate the impacts of the destructive pest animal. 
Media release

Producers urged to inspect lucerne for cowpea aphids

The NSW Government's Local Land Services is urging producers across the Monaro region to inspect their lucerne for cowpea aphid infestations, following increasing reports of the pest impacting pastures and livestock health. 
Official notice

Western Local Land Services to undertake aerial baiting program for wild dog control

Western Local Land Services is set to undertake its spring aerial baiting program for the control of wild dogs.

Contact Local Land Services NSW

Our team welcome your enquiries, feedback and comments.  Contact our team

Find your nearest LLS office

Our website is in the final stages of migrating to nsw.gov.au.  
Use the search function to find the information or resources you need.

Phone:1300 795 299
Top of page