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Managing invasive animals in NSW – a new review

Treating feral deer as game rather than pests. The potential for goat farming to create major landscape degradation. Zero policy on how to tackle red-eared slider turtles. These are just some of the issues we raised recently at a workshop put on by NSW’s Natural Resources Commission.
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A large male red deer in the Grampians. Photo: Steve Morvell
A large male red deer. In NSW this feral animal is treated as a game species. Photo: Steve Morvell

NSW’s Natural Resources Commission is reviewing pest animal management in the state, with a draft report to be released for public comment in early 2016.

Our project officer Tim Low attended an a workshop put on by the commission earlier this week, using the opportunity to raise a number of issues, including:

  • The importance of keeping one eye on the future because there will be new pests to consider. New pests offer ideal opportunities for intervention when their populations are small. Governments need a foresight capacity, to anticipate future problems, which are often driven by social changes, for example experimentation with new crops or novel pets. The smooth newt is an example of a species that should be assessed for its potential to become invasive in NSW given the evidence of a wild population near Melbourne.
  • The potential of goat farming to create major landscape degradation, under circumstances where feral goats are interbred with new breeds, increasing the genetic base of wild populations, and a growing goat meat market. Discussions with government pest experts confirmed that goats are causing massive and increasing damage in western NSW.
  • The legislation treating deer as game rather than harmful invaders. The most effective control method, night shooting, is outlawed because it is too effective.
  • Lack of any policy on red-eared slider turtles, by contrast with Queensland, where they are declared a pest and were successfully eradicated.
  • The need to build public awareness about aquarium plant risks. The current program of raising awareness about invasive aquarium fish should expand to invasive aquarium plants, because the invasion pathway is the same.
  • The need for integration. A future feral animal strategy should be integrated with weed and invertebrate strategies, to achieve more coherent policy.

We were very pleased with the Natural Resources Commission’s recent review of weed management in NSW, which adopted many of the reforms we advocated, so we are hoping this review will also lead to strong recommendations. Whether or not the government will adopt them is a different question.

More info

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    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]


    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]