Thread: Expensive wallabies

Shotgun at short range best.

Originally Posted by Trout

Shotgun at short range best.

lead 36grm load of #2s perfect wobbly medicine

Hey at least the council is being proactive instead of waiting till they r a problem

Perhaps someone needs to organise a Roo shooting night for the forum members.

I dont have any contacts for that.

Bring back the bounty. It’d be cheap at $100ea
Even in Cantab it costs over $700/kill

Originally Posted by yogi

After seeing the amount of worms in the gut, I wouldn't even think about eating it now

I tend to not eat the gut!

Meat is good roasted, done in an oven bag.

It is money well spent. If a significant population gets established in Otago it will cost farmers and the economy 100's of millions. And then be a risk to Southland. Reporting and thinking about it as a cost per animal is dumb.

Originally Posted by Padox

Hey at least the council is being proactive instead of waiting till they r a problem

And anyone who has any awareness knows this. The article popped up elsewhere and unsurprisingly it is the unaccountable shit-stirring arm of a political faction being disingenuous for the sake of generating outrage. It is an election year after all.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/progr...skipping-south

Originally Posted by XR500

They dna test wobblies that turn up in weird places. This is how they prove that some have been relocated from the North Island...via someone's car boot

There aren't any Bennetts wallaby in the NI are there? and no dama in the south so it would be pretty easy to tell if there had been a liberation between the Islands.

Originally Posted by Steelisreal

And anyone who has any awareness knows this. The article popped up elsewhere and unsurprisingly it is the unaccountable shit-stirring arm of a political faction being disingenuous for the sake of generating outrage. It is an election year after all.

Agreed. You just need to know Williams.
These things need to be controlled and their spread closely monitored. You just need to see the damage they do and how the landscape recovers when they are absent.

We have shot over 2000 off one station the last 3 years. They are constantly being hammered and you can certainly see the difference.

Some of you need to learn a bit more about biosecurity and pest management and the difference between that and hunting.
My happiest day will be when that last individual of an invasive species is killed, to kill this individual will probably cost a significant order of magnitude of cost more than the first one killed. Eradication projects across the globe have failed because as the numbers went down the costs went up, the politicians get uncomfortable, reduce the budget because the species is at low density. The gains are lost, the budget spent is wasted, and you're back to square one.

Read up on invasive curves and the economic returns of control at certain stages: https://www.invasivespeciescentre.ca...nvasion-curve/ you only have to look at the graph.

I left the biosecurity field (although still do a bit of advisory work in biosecurity), because I got sick of politicians insisting I waste budget on species that are already here, aren't going anywhere, cost millions to control this year, next year, and every bloody year after that.

But they wouldn't adequately fund the eradication projects (or the surveillance to detect species before they are too established to eradicate) of very early invaders with very real invasive and impact potential where getting them all is feasible and the economic benefit is immeasurable. They see the cost per plant/animal and think it's outrageous, but I was intending to save them millions by not incurring the social, economic, and environmental cost of these species establishing and spreading. They do not have the foresight to see that these species are the ones they'll be wanting controlled when it's too late to do so.

If you ever want to advocate for sensible biosecurity budget use, ask your local biosecurity officer "what is the species that you are managing that I've never even heard of?". Then tell your councillors to fund the control of that species dollar for dollar it'll be best bang for buck. Not legacy pests that's bad money after bad to try and manage them as a population (without disruptive tech) - you're only left with the expensive option of the management of their effect and suppression in areas of economic or environmental value.

I'm encouraged that the local authorities in question are making dedicated and sensible efforts in controlling spread rather than allowing wallabies into their areas.

There is nothing more expensive than when you can kill an animal pest species for $1 an animal.

Also the tax payers union needs to crawl up their own jacksies. Bunch of moronic cock wombles in every occasion I have ever heard from them.

Originally Posted by Tahr

Agreed. You just need to know Williams.
These things need to be controlled and their spread closely monitored. You just need to see the damage they do and how the landscape recovers when they are absent.

We have shot over 3000 off one station the last 3 years. They are constantly being hammered and you can certainly see the difference.

Edit: 3000

I read this in the paper today, i especially like the comparison that it would be cheaper to charter a private jet for every wallaby killed & send them back to Australia!

The only areas of NZ that they haven't been reported in and verified by a biosecurity officer is the West coast of the South Island and Taranaki. The problem is real.