Sniffer dogs number halved while biosecurity threat imminent

A disease which would devastate Queensland farmers and put up meat prices up is on our doorstep. But the number of detector dogs on the front lines to keep it out have been halved.

THE biggest biosecurity threat since bird flu is on Australia’s doorstep, but the number of detector dogs at Queensland ports and airports has halved in recent years.

There are also no dogs currently based in Cairns, despite its airport receiving flights from swine fever hit countries.

African Swine Fever has a 90 per cent or more mortality rate and would devastate Queensland’s $300 million pork industry.

Figures obtained by The Courier-Mail reveal the number of biosecurity detector dogs has reduced from 12 to six in the past seven years, and nationally from 80 to 39.

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Detector dogs in Queensland have halved over recent years. Pictured is Australian Border Force development officer Gary Callaghan with Boris. Picture: Mark Stewart

Pork Queensland boss John Coward said while the government was doing good work to keep ASF out of the country, the drop in dog numbers was concerning.

“I know there’s stronger attention being applied, but from an industry perspective we would encourage a rapid increase of those resources at airports,” he said.

“If we can’t get sniffer dogs in there because we haven’t got them trained up we need more resources on those border controlled positions.”

The immediate-past Inspector General of Biosecurity has raised issues, saying the dogs were responsible for finding more than half of undeclared meat entering the country.

Opposition agriculture spokesman Joel Fitzgibbon said more, not less resources were needed to protect reputation for clean, high-quality food.

“The collapse in detector dog numbers is alarming and demonstrates Australia’s border defences are being weakened by an incompetent Government determined to puts its quest for a budget surplus ahead of our food security and the livelihoods of our already drought-affected farmers,” he said.

Agriculture department boss Daryl Quinlivan said there were fewer dogs being used in a more efficient way.

Agriculture Department Daryl Quinlivan says they would not to increase the number of detector dogs. Picture: AAP Image/Lukas Coch

“Generally we would like to increase the number of dogs we have. They’re not a panacea, they’re just a very effective tool,” he said.

A department spokeswoman said they were looking at deploying a dog to Cairns, given it receives international flights from southeast Asia countries which have ASF.

She said there had been a transition from dogs that only screened passengers or only mail/cargo to multipurpose dogs which did both.

The spokeswoman said Biosecurity had implemented a range of measures to deal with heightened ASF risk, including more education of incoming passengers to Australia, testing the feral pig population and preparing contingency plans if there is an incursion.

Detections of ASF in products seized have risen from 15 per cent of items in February to 48 per cent in September.