The offensive was mounted to eradicate feral pigs from sensitive wetland habitats such as Coongie Lakes, minimise their impact on the wider environment and pastoral production, and to create a buffer zone in Queensland to control further downstream spread. It was seen as the first of many coordinated, periodic, population knockdowns that would serve as follow-up control in strategic areas.

The Queensland part of the offensive, a partnership of landholders, shire councils, Department of Natural Resources and Mines and the Lake Eyre Basin Group, was timed to coincide with the Marree Soil Conservation Board District Feral Pig Control Program on the South Australian side.

In the 4 days to 1st November 2002, around 12,000 square kilometres of south-west Queensland was aerial baited with 1080 (sodium fluoroacetate). This was done with a specially modified Cessna 186 fitted with a 300 kilogram capacity meat hopper and a Global Positioning System (GPS) that recorded accurate data on flight paths and bait positioning.

A similar area was covered on the South Australian side during the following week by using a chopper with a Parks and Wildlife Service marksman. According to the Project Coordinator for the Rangelands Soil Board Executive, Len Rule, conditions were ideal for the job.

“It was dry and we wanted to knock the pigs while they were concentrated on what water was left,” he said.

“We got about 150 pigs on Innamincka, Gidgealpa and Cordillo Downs, and we covered down as far as Bollards Lagoon and Merty Merty.

“There weren’t many waters left so it was pretty easy to find the pigs. When we got them, we also took blood samples to check for leptospirosis.”

Leptospirosis is found in up to 20% of feral pigs in Queensland and is a threat to domestic livestock production. Lepto’ is a serious bacterial disease that can be transmitted to humans by the contact of blood, urine or raw meat to eyes, mouth, nose, or broken skin. It causes very high temperatures, kidney trouble and jaundice, and can be fatal.

Feral pigs would also be ideal vectors, or carriers, of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD). Should FMD ever get into Australia, the estimated feral pig population of 24 million would make control very difficult. Even the immediate eradication of an FMD outbreak would still cost the country in excess of $3 billion in lost exports.

Len Rule said that apart from getting rid of the pigs, the main thing that came out of the program was the high level of cross-border cooperation and coordination.

Land Protection Officer with the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines, Craig Magnussen was pivotal to the project and was pleased with the outcome. The support from the landholders was the key to the whole thing,” he said, “and they’re all keen to keep at it in the future.

He added that there was more to it than simply killing pigs. We’re going to monitor the success of the program in different situations and landscapes, do a cost/benefit analysis, document the whole thing and incorporate results into the Lake Eyre Basin feral animal scoping paper.”

As well as getting rid of the pigs, this project builds on the cross-border cooperative framework that has already been used in the control of weeds and with other natural resource management issues in the Lake Eyre Basin.