For affected landholders and those involved in the campaign to rid the Belford district near Singleton of a marauding pack of wild dogs success was sweet.
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But vigilance and further work will be required to achieve a longterm solution to the wild dog problem.
Working through our traditional summer holidays including Christmas Day, a team of people, headed by Richard Ali, Hunter Local Land Services (LLS) ,senior bio-security officer, were able to eliminate what he described as a huge and dangerous pack of 12 wild dogs.
“We don’t expect to see a pack this size in this type of rural area which has many small acreages with homes and plenty of human activity,” he said.
“And these dogs were a real worry as they included six pups aged nine to 10 months who were keen to have a go at anything. In fact we would describe them as posing a threat to humans, as they had already been aggressive to people on horseback”
A coordinated approach to the eradication program was the reason for the success with landholders providing vital information to Richard and his team.
Preliminary work involved speaking to affected landholders about the attacks as well as contacting neighbouring landholders many of whom had seen the dogs roaming the district.
Ascertaining where the dogs were coming from and ensuring they were not ‘straying’ domestic dogs was a first priority.
Cameras were set-up to monitor the pack’s movements after it was established their home bases were located on land owned by mining giant Glencore and from within the Belford National Park.
This area of ‘quiet’ land was located to the east of the New England Highway between Standen Drive and Kirkton Road.
Mr Ali was keen to thank everyone for their assistance as the success was due to a team effort.
“Getting the intelligence on the dogs is vital when it comes to eliminating them especially a pack of this size,” he said.
Once all the information was collected contractor Ben Johnsen from Scone was employed to undertake the work of eradicating the dogs. He is one of the two Hunter Valley Combined Wild Dog Committee endorsed trappers.
Mr Ali said the hybrid dogs were living very well.
“The pups had a high weight which meant they were doing very nicely,” he said.
Within three week nine dogs had been removed and the other three most probably have crossed the highway and moved into vacate land near Pokolbin and Huntlee.
And it is this area where Mr Ali and his team will next be concentrating their efforts.
“We believe that is the main breeding area for the wild dogs – the pack that were active in Belford were probably originally from the Pokolbin area and the land at the back of Branxton,” he said. In the New Year we will start gathering intelligence and we are keen to hear from landholders and the public on any dog issues and or sightings.”
Baiting will also commence in the Belford National Park and surrounding properties to ensure they remain dog free.
“Hunter LLS is looking to organise community training and education on wild dog management and control methods,” Mr Ali said.
“Once again people could contact us and hopefully we can get that underway in the next couple of months.”