Beef productivity in Fitzroy Basin is expected to rise thanks to the delivery of a new coordinated control and monitoring program designed to reduce pest animal populations and protect agricultural assets.
The five-year producer demonstration site utilised Canid Pest Ejectors, trapping with foothold traps, shooting and monitoring, to improve the capacity to manage feral animal species.
Landholders are using the WildDogScan app to monitor wild dog activity and assess the outcomes of their control programs, which Fitzroy Basin Association land management officer Kate Woolley said provided a more accurate account of control activities and reporting requirements.
"This project aims to not only provide data around the effects of wild dog control on the survival of calves from pregnancy through to weaning but also demonstrate the tried and tested methods and techniques for wild dog control in a coordinated manner and the economic impact it has on individual producers," she said.
"The predation of wild dogs on both young and old cattle causes significant losses to the industry through condemned meat and calf and weaner losses.
"Group members are frequently looking at ways to improve productivity and animal welfare outcomes, including better wild dog control using the framework for best practice pest animal management."
Blood testing had revealed neospora canis infection among cattle from properties in the group, with rates up to 20 per cent.
Barfield Road Producer Group spokesperson, Melinee Leather, Barfield Station, Banana, said the impetus to form the PDS was "power in numbers" to address the problem of wild dog borne disease and predation.
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"We knew we had a big problem with wild dogs, not only from dog bites on calves and unexplained pregnancy losses, but the feedback from Teys Biloela on our animal health data is 80 per cent hydatid damage within the consigned slaughter cattle," Mrs Leather said.
"The carcases are not condemned but the offal is resulting in a significant loss for the abattoir and us.
"What prompted me to help form this PDS is finding an answer to what we are losing in productivity. Whilst those animals appeared perfectly healthy but had hydatids in their livers, are we losing productivity in terms of weight gain per animal?"
National Wild Dog management coordinator Greg Mifsud advised that community baiting provided the most cost-effective approach to population-level control.
"Asset protection control delivered when livestock are susceptible to predation, during calving and weaning, relies on the delivery of small amounts of targeted control at strategic locations such as water points, drainage lines or isolated areas of the property where wild dogs are likely to reside, or around paddocks where calving is likely to take place," Mr Mifsud said.
"Corridors between neighbouring properties may also be targeted to prevent recolonisation by wild dogs from other properties."
Mrs Leather said shooting was the primary control tool used in the past to manage wild dogs on the organically certified Barfield Station.
"Two of the properties in the PDS are certified organic and participate in the baiting program by using uncertified areas. We just adapted and made it work," she said.
"All of us use working dogs so we were a bit frightened about baiting, but we recently received canid pest ejector kits to trial, and hopefully that will be a good outcome for us."
The property pest management plans were also valuable in a remnant vegetation pilot.
"An integral part of that application was giving the definitive type of predator control we were considering," Mrs Leather said.
"Those pest management plans are great documents to share when you are collaborating with other organisations and for our organic, European Union and Grasslands certification audits. It is a powerful document to show customers from international markets."
Mrs Leather said the group now carries out a coordinated ground baiting and monitoring program on a landscape scale.
"We have two other separate properties we are implementing similar programs on, and other producers are doing the same, so it has increased activity and awareness in an area even larger than the PDS."
