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3mo ago

NSW mulls bounty scheme to tackle feral goats, cats and pigs

Premier Chris Minns’s backing of bounties has divided farmers from conservationists over whether hunting incentives can curb feral pests without cruelty

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Premier Chris Minns has said all options are on the table for dealing with pest animals, including a potential bounty. Picture from file
Bounty-hunting feral animals, including pigs, could be coming soon to NSW. Photo: Jono Searle/AAP PHOTOS
Robert Borsak, an MP who leads the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party in the New South Wales parliament, has introduced the bounty hunter bill

Overview

  • NSW Premier Chris Minns has publicly backed exploring feral animal bounties as a novel tool for reducing populations of goats, pigs and cats.
  • The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party proposal would allocate AUD 2 million for scalp payments of roughly AUD 10–20 per animal.
  • Conservationists and CSIRO caution that bounty programs rarely achieve the 57–70 percent annual cull rate needed for population suppression and are prone to fraud and cruelty.
  • Farmers say existing methods such as baiting, trapping and aerial culling have failed to stem growing damage and safety risks from wild pigs and cats.
  • In Victoria’s 14-year fox bounty, hunters claimed more than 80,000 scalps in 2022 but removed only a fraction of the total invasive fox population.