Download Property pest animal plans

Property pest animal plans
Principles of successful pest animal management
Managing ‘pest animals’ successfully requires thought, planning and considered action. Responding to
the problem out of anger or frustration is unlikely to provide a lasting solution. Make your response a
problem-solving exercise rather than a vendetta.
Define the problem
Remember, it is not the species of animal, per se, that is the problem. It is the circumstances in which
‘pest’ animals exist that create problems. If you raise elephants, wild dogs will not be a problem.
However, if you raise small animals, which dogs could use as prey, and you leave these unprotected
from attack, this is a potential problem situation. In this situation you have a number of possible
responses. Eliminating dogs is only one option, and it may not be the most appropriate or economical
solution.
Determine what is affected
If livestock are affected, which animals are they? Are they mostly young animals? Is there a particular
time or season when losses occur? Be sure of the cause of death. You may see dogs eating a dead
wallaby, but it may have been struck by a car or died of natural causes - the dogs may simply be
scavenging. Remember that predation by a ‘pest’ animal may not be the only impact. Livestock may lose
condition as a consequence of stress place upon them by harassment. Pest animals may be a factor in
the spread of diseases and parasites that affect livestock, pets, wildlife or humans. The role of pest
animals in transmitting diseases or parasites is not always obvious.
Understand the scale of the impact
Are attacks on livestock confined to one area, or are they widespread? Does the problem affect other
land managers?
Understand the biology and ecology of the pest
Knowledge of the pest animal’s ecology and behaviour is essential if you are to develop an effective
response. It may be necessary to focus your management efforts on key stages in the animal’s life cycle,
such as breeding or dispersal. Understanding the pest animal’s behaviour and ecology may also help
you to make preventative measures effective or avoid aggravating an existing problem.
Costs
Lost agricultural production resulting from pest animal damage can be measured in dollars. It may be
possible to calculate the point where the cost of carrying out pest animal management exceeds the value
of the losses. Ask whether it makes economic sense to undertake a control program.
Of course there are impacts other than economic ones that may be important. The losses of pets,
working animals or wildlife are important impacts that perhaps cannot be assigned a monetary value.
However, before you implement a pest animal management plan, you will need to know how much effort
and expense will be required to reduce impacts to acceptable levels.
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Develop a management plan.
A thorough understanding of the nature and scale of your problem will help you to adopt realistic
expectations. Set realistic goals and direct your efforts at reducing impact. If your goal is to reduce
economic impact, you need to compare the costs and benefits of the various management options and
combinations to decide which allows you to achieve your goal. Your plan will need to be flexible so that
you can respond to changes in the status of the pest animal or the environment and new information
collected as you implement the plan.
A pest management plan may need to account for the effects that action directed at the target species
may have on other pest animals. Will your actions result in an increase in problems with another animal?
Will your actions have unintended consequences on other landholders, enterprises or the environment?
Removing foxes, for example, may increase feral cat activity on the ground. Is this a problem? You may
need to consider these issues and act so that your neighbour’s activities are not adversely affected.
Is your plan directed at individual animals or populations? If your plan is directed at managing the impact
that populations of animals have, you may need to work at a landscape rather than the individual
property scale. It may be necessary for several property owners or affected parties to work together to
manage the problem at the appropriate scale.
Implement the plan
Planning and cooperation will become more important where the economic interests, legal obligations,
skills and attitudes of stakeholders differ. If you are working at the landscape scale, ensure the
participation of stakeholders in planning, implementing and monitoring the work. As you implement the
plan, be aware of changes in the environment or the status of target species. Use new information to
adapt and improve your practices.
Monitor your progress and evaluate the effectiveness of your work.
Performance and operational monitoring are both necessary for refining and improving your pest
management activities. As part of your planning, determine what simple measurements can be made to
assess how successful your work is in meeting objectives. For example, assume your goal is to reduce
loss of newborn animals to predators. Determine what is the best measure of this, and decide over what
period you need to make your measurements. You should also keep accurate records of the costs
incurred in implementing a program. These should be reviewed to determine whether the work is costeffective.
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