When Neil Baker’s wife Michelle looked out the kitchen window for breakfast earlier this year, she saw something unusual towards the river flats on the family’s northern NSW farm.
Unable to make out what it was, he grabbed a pair of binoculars to get a closer look. What he saw was horrible. “He was a wild dog feasting on a ram we had,” said Baker, a Tweed Valley pork and beef farmer who also runs sheep.
A wild dog caught on camera in March.
The attack was one of dozens carried out by dogs and foxes on Baker’s property and nearby farms in recent years.
“They’re big, wild dogs,” Baker said. “They are wild enough to take cattle. The fact that they are now seen during the day shows how brazen they have become.”
Local Land Services, a government agency that helps landowners eradicate feral animals, said this year’s wet weather had led to a large increase in the number of pest animals. So far this year, the agency has killed 22,377 animals through aerial shooting operations, including more than 19,581 pigs. Last year, it euthanized 33,569 animals in total.
NSW Farmers said its members were also reporting an increase in feral pigs, dogs and cats. Wild dogs include wild dogs, dingoes and their hybrids. Deer were also invading new territory.
A local land services hunter during a pig capture operation in the Megalong Valley last year. Credit: Nick Moir
Brewarrina farmer Gerard Glover, who chairs the NSW Farmers Western Division Council, said he was prepared for an increase in feral pigs and foxes on his land when the wetter weather ended, and they were forced farther to eat.
“The numbers are building. When it starts to dry out a little bit … the numbers are definitely there.”