Note: The Ministers' letter was the subject of the previous CVCC post Plans for Hunting in NSW National Parks Changed dated 18 July, 2013.
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Who do you think you’re kidding?
Allowing red neck shooters into
National Parks (which are intended as safe havens for wildlife and for
recreation/leisure for humans) is hardly what I’d call “supplementary pest
control”.
More to the point would be to have an
efficient LHPA [ Livestock Health and Pest Authority] that has sufficient staff to deal with
pest species on private properties. As it stands our local LHPA has 2
rangers to look after the entire Clarence Valley plus Dorrigo. You must
be joking!!
In my area alone (radius of 5 km) in
the past 2 years, wild dogs have killed/injured in excess of 50 head of
sheep/goats/alpaca; almost 40 head of poultry; killed 2 pet dogs; attacked 5
pet dogs; and threatened 1 person – and that’s just the ones I know of.
And of course, there is no way of calculating the number of wildlife that
have been killed. There are 2 packs of wild dogs operating in my area
that I know of. That’s a lot of wildlife and domestic stock needed to
provide them with regular food.
After living on my property for 35
years and walking my dogs through the bush all that time, I now have to pack my
2 German Shepherd Dogs into my car and drive 10 km to walk my dogs safely along
a walking track on the edge of town. Just exactly what do we pay our LHPA
rates for?
Get serious. If all these
shooters need somewhere to go to shoot, get them to help farmers, etc eradicate
pest species on their properties and leave National Parks for the benefit of
wildlife and the public.
Just don’t think I’m going to believe
the rubbish about “supplementary pest control” in National Parks. When
you get serious about eradicating pest species, I’ll be interested.
