North East farmers band together to protect livestock from wild dogs

The former Victorian Farmers Federation president of the Tallangatta branch is spearheading a campaign by North East farmers to fight proposed government changes over how packs of wild dogs are managed.

Mr Morant said the removal of a three kilometre livestock protection zone around properties where, at present, baits and traps can legally be set to stop wild dogs entering his paddocks would have a devastating impact on the welfare of his animals and on farmers' mental health.

"The government's three kilometre livestock protection buffer strikes the right balance, leaving millions of hectares for wild dogs and dingoes to do whatever they're supposed to be doing as apex predators," Mr Morant said.

"If you remove these zones you remove the buffer we have to stop wild dogs getting into our properties, if you remove them you open the door to predators to maul defenceless sheep, lambs and calves.

"This seems to be something driven by people in the city who cry foul about cruelty to wild dogs - what they don't see is the terrible cruelty these animals inflict on young livestock, lambs and calves.

"It has a profound effect not just on the animals that are attacked but on the farmers who are trying to keep them safe, the stress levels farmers face with seeing animals in such pain is just horrific.

"At one stage I didn't want to get out of bed in the morning because I didn't want to go and look in the paddocks. It gets to the point where the stress of it all is unbearable, you just feel so powerless."

Mr Morant said he had been lucky this year as, like many neighbouring farms, he had invested in electric fencing, but many farmers were not so fortunate.

"The thing is, we have had few incidents this year, but I know of one farmer very close to me who has been copping a hiding. The dogs move around all the time, they shift their areas.

"One week might be good, the next they'll be howling outside your fence line. Electric fences are expensive and very high maintenance, but if you want to run your stock that's what you have to do."

Mitta Valley farmer Judy Cardwell, who is involved with the Mitta Valley Wild Dog Action Group, said if the buffer zones were removed the effects on farmers' livestock would be devastating.

She said she understood there was a September deadline for farmers to have their say on any proposed changes but was pushing to extend that.

"Wild dog numbers don't seem to be increasing at the moment because the measures that have been in place for so long seemed to have been working," she said.

"We set up the Mitta Valley Wild Dog Action Group because we knew that this deadline was coming up at the end of September, and there didn't seem to be anything being done about it.

"We want to see better studies done because we don't actually quite trust this latest study that all the city press has been grabbing which is saying it's protecting purebred dingoes.

"Well, we question the credibility of this study that in our opinion overstates the number of purebred dingoes. When you look at the figures, they just don't add up.

"The Victorian government is considering phasing out the use of 1080 baits because there's a very strong push from certain groups to do this."

Bethanga farmer Peter Star, who is a National Wild Dog Action Plan Coordination Committee member, said the key issue surrounding any proposed changes was the removal of livestock protection zones.

"The livestock protection zone is actually doing a very good job," Mr Star said.

"It's creating a barrier where domestic dogs can't go and integrate with the supposedly wild dog-dingo hybrid population.

"If they do change these rules, livestock losses due to wild dog attacks would greatly increase, we'll be back to where we were 30, 40 years ago.

"And you're going to have a significant number of wild dog controllers out of a job."

The Border Mail has contacted Victorian Environment Minister Ingrid Stitt's office for comment.

To read more stories, download The Border Mail news app in the Apple Store or Google Play.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: