Farmers in Victoria’s north-east have been trying to protect their livestock from wild dog attacks since the mid-1980s. Now they are worried decades of work is about to come undone.
Readers are advised this article contains an image some may find distressing.
Tallangatta farmer and former chair of the National Wild Dog Management Advisory Group, Michael McCormack said 13 years ago a livestock protection buffer zone was put in place to give wild dog controllers the authority to bait and trap on public land within three kilometres of the farm fence.
“It has made a huge difference — it’s holding the majority of dogs outside back outside that 3km line.
“It is essential for us to keep that buffer zone. Not only does it protect our wildlife, it helps our wild dog controllers to work in that space,” Mr McCormack said.
The buffer zone is set to expire on October 1 and the state government has not confirmed whether it will continue.
Retired dog trapper Ian Campbell said he was concerned that if the buffer zone was not kept, the community would be back at square one.
“When I first started it was pretty ordinary,” Mr Campbell said.
“You’d go to people’s place and there would be sheep floating in dams.
“I hated going to football, because people would ask ‘what the hell are you doing here?’
“Now if the farmers hear a dog, it gets attended to straight away. But before there were that many dogs – the farmers were out all night trying to keep them out of the fence.
“The moment they take the buffer zone away, the dogs will be back pushing the farmers’ fences all the time.
“Don’t think the farmers are going to sit back and take it; there will be marches in Melbourne, don’t you worry.”
Are wild dogs dingoes?
The ABC contacted the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action to get clarification on future plans for the Livestock Protection buffer zone.
An interview was declined and a short statement was provided:
“We will continue to work with Traditional Owners, farmers and private landholders to appropriately balance the protection of livestock and dingo conservation.”
This year a study University of NSW study found through DNA testing a majority of wild dogs were dingoes, sparking calls for greater protection across Australia.
In Victoria, where dingoes are only protected in national parks, the DNA analysis found up to 88 per cent of samples from that state came from pure dingoes, despite beliefs there were no pure dingoes left in Victoria
Victorian farmers are worried the silence from the state government in the lead-up to the buffer zone review could mean big changes ahead regarding the management of wild dogs.
“My major concern is our Victorian population — there’s a lot of urban dwellers and a lot of animal rights people and they seem to think we’re rednecks out here that want to slaughter everything,” Mr McCormack said.
“We are trying to put our case forward to continue this buffer zone to allow our government employees to help us and to run out livestock that add to the GDP of Victoria.”
Sleepless nights
Stuart Morant has been farming in Tallangatta Valley since the 1980s and before the introduction of the buffer zone, spent many sleepless nights in the paddocks protecting this sheep.
“In the early days, my wife and myself were out with the dog trappers, we spent all our time out there.
“You can be up at 3am in with your sheep, and you think when the dogs come in you’ll shoot them. But the morning you have a sleep-in, the dogs will get in.
Mr Morant said wild dogs had taken a mental toll on many producers over the years.
“I got to a point where I didn’t want to get out of bed because I didn’t want to see the devastation.
“I rode into the paddock one morning, there was a ewe laying on the ground, the dogs had eaten her backside out, and have pulled her two lambs out and eaten them too.
“There’s nothing you can’t tell me about animal cruelty that I haven’t seen from wild dogs.”
Libby Paton is a cattle farmer in the Mitta Valley, who worries what will happen if the buffer zone is removed.
“I think it’s so important to be listening to these stories, because there’s decades of lived experience.
“I believe the buffer zone has to be continued.
“I actually don’t mind if [the buffer zone] gets reviewed every few years, because the environment changes and industry changes and it’s an opportunity to keep improving it.”
