“IT’S NOT fun sleeping in your car when you’re 70,” Tubbut farmer Judy Edwards says.

Such was her desperation to protect her 1000 sheep from wild dogs that the East Gippsland farmer recently took to sleeping out in the paddock, a shotgun at the ready."
http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/news/national/wild-dog-attacks-farmers-desperate-for-more-dog-trappers/story-fnkfnspy-1227324924287

Neither is it fun to be awake in your car, constantly watching the bumper ahead with bleary eyes for perhaps an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, not to mention the dreary time in between, tending the equivalent of someone else's sheep.

Indeed IS MISE...

This is that 'Cockys' livelihood we're talking about here ! I'm sure she'd much rather be back at her homestead in bed, than standing sentry over a thousand head of her precious sheep trying to protect them from feral dogs and other savage predators.

We city folk have no idea how tough it is to work the land ? Drought, floods, famine, vermin, greedy Banks, unsympathetic governments, and greedy middle men, all of whom are trying hard to financially decimate our farmers, by reducing their meagre profit margins. As I said, we city folk have no idea how hard it is to be a successful farmer ?

Just where do these wild dogs come from?

They come from city people who buy a puppy, don't spend the time, or get the help needed to train the thing, & discover they have a major nuisance on their hands. Often bigger than they expected, because they did not do their research.

What to do with a boisterous young dog, that is hurting the kids? Well they won't have it put down, or take it to the pound/animal shelter, so they drive out to the bush, & let it go.

Councils demand we keep our trained, stock friendly dogs locked up. They are not to be allowed to protect our stock, but do nothing to eliminate the marauding packs. Hell they don't even prosecute those proven to have abandoned the now wild dogs.

Then the bleeding hearts want to take our guns off us, & to hell with our lambs or foals.

We need a large registration charge, large enough to fund a team of rangers to go out & shoot the growing packs of wild dogs on our city fringes, & large fines for any who can't account for that pet they bought. The same should most definitely apply to cats too.

No doubt, there can be no more efficient killing machine then a feral tom cat ! They hunt with considerable stealth and cunning, just ask the authorities at Australia's Macquarie Island in the Sub-Antarctic ? Many of the islands indigenous birds were almost decimated through the efforts of the feral cats, abandoned by the old time Whalers ? Apparently, it took the combined might of the Australian government and the scientific community to finally rid the Island of these dangerous pests. So one needs no imagination to realise how much destruction that can be occasioned, both by feral cats as well as wild dogs !

Feral cats are the worst they kill even if they are not hungry most animals kill to survive, feral cats being an exception.

A factsheet on wild dogs in the Australian Alps.

http://www.pestsmart.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Wild_Dog_Fact_Sheet.pdf

G'day there PAUL1405...

That was a very interesting link you kindly provided all of us with Paul ! Much of the information contained therein was quite new to me ? I had no idea they can in their own way, assist in keeping other feral animals in check. However, they themselves are responsible for much of the killing and destruction found on grazing lands ? So I dunno mate what's to be done about them ?

Hi there IS MISE...

Your Topic certainly establishes beyond any reasonable doubt, why our poor old graziers, have a considerable need for firearms ? Not that I know anything, but even laying baits wouldn't solve the problem, as the virulent toxicity of the baits themselves, may well have a deleterious impact upon legitimate stock, including the 'Cockys' working dogs ? Trapping also may have a similar negative effect, by unintentionally ensnaring stock ? Personally I don't like traps in any form. They cause unbearable agony hour after hour.

Not unlike those frightening 'pangi' pits we had in Vietnam ? To witness any human being or animal, impaled upon those bastard things, is the makings of a horrific nightmare ! Being caught in a pangi pit, was the one thing that absolutely terrified me, more than anything else I reckon ?

I guess there's no other real option, other than destruction by the reliable ol' 12g ? Seemingly the only adequate way of dealing with these feral dogs and cats ?

And that's not all that brilliant either, the farmer's got more to do with his or her time, than standing guard in a cold dark paddock in the hope of snaring a few of these critters ? Buggered if I know - who'd be a grazier ?

The peace. The air. The night sky.