Des Houghton: Land lockup breeding a feral pig crisis
More than 24 million feral pigs are wiping out native species, destroying farmland, feasting on endangered turtle eggs
Des Houghton
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Does Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek have any idea about what is happening outside her safe Labor seat of Sydney?
It appears not.
To appease the Greens she has locked away 30 million hectares of bushland worsening one of the nation’s major environmental disasters.
More than 24 million feral pigs are wiping out native species, destroying farmland, feasting on endangered turtle eggs and spreading noxious weeds and deadly diseases like Panama TR4, which threatens our $600m banana industry.
The alarm was raised in State Parliament this week by the Member for Hill Shane Knuth of the Katter’s Australia Party.
“The problem is these acquisitions are never properly managed, and the land becomes a breeding ground for the feral pigs and noxious weeds,” Knuth said.
“Locking up land equivalent to the size of New Zealand is an eco-disaster in the making.
“It is a death sentence for North Queensland’s agricultural industry and native wildlife.”
Knuth said Labor was driven by an “unrealistic and delusional climate change goal”. Well said sir!
Pigs produce up to 20 piglets a year, which is why they are in plague proportion, he told the House.
“Feral pigs are killing our cassowaries, digging up our turtle eggs and creating mass soil erosion and destruction to riverbanks, rainforests and primary agricultural land.”
Dr Heather Channon, an authority on feral pigs, says 70 per cent of feral pigs needed to be culled annually to keep the population from expanding, Knuth said.
However the money allocated for culling was a pittance.
He said recreational pig hunters “do a fantastic job” at their own expense.
But the numbers were too vast for even the most ardent shooter.
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