6 minute read
A problem shared
Samoan taro farmers have visited sugarcane growers in Innisfail to seek solutions to feral pig control.
Go early and go hard. That was the advice from Innisfail sugarcane growers to their Samoan taro growing counterparts during a recent feral pig control study tour.
A delegation led by the Scientific Research Organisation of Samoa (SROS) and including representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, Samoan district councils, a farmers’ association and a taro exporter cooperative visited the Innisfail district to learn the latest in feral pig management innovation.
Sugarcane growers including Donna Campagnolo, Luke Zammit and CANEGROWERS Innisfail Chair Joe Marano heard that feral pigs have only recently become problematic for the Samoan agricultural industry.
“It was around 2022 that it became a major issue, especially for farmers and especially for taro growers,” explained SROS CEO Dr Pousui Fiame Leo. “Pigs have destroyed around 60 per cent of our taro export so it is severe in regard to our small economy. It really gave the government a strong message that we have to act and find out how we can control pigs.
“We have some measures already like trapping, but we don’t know what the most effective techniques are. We are here to try to work out the best scenario to manage the pigs.”
Luke Zammit said the story echoed his own experiences with feral pigs, which he proclaimed weren’t a major problem in the Innisfail district until after Tropical Cyclone Larry in 2006.
“The cyclone must have opened up the country so that they could get through –that’s all you could put it down to,” Luke said. “On that invasion curve, for years and years it’s easy to manage, they’re around but they’re not too bad. Then they get to a certain threshold and their breeding rate just pops. It’s exponential growth, and then it’s a whole different system. So, if you are still back lower on that curve, it’s really important to hit them hard before they reach that point.
“You’ve got to take out 75 per cent of the population in three months to have any impact over 12 months. If you go out and kill half the pigs on all these farms tonight, in 12 months there’ll be the same number of pigs you started with.
“They’ve got an endless supply of water, an endless supply of food, they’re walking up the main street of Silkwood.”
The Innisfail growers explained it would take an all of community approach to tackling the issue effectively in a wet tropical environment, with neighbouring landholders required to join the effort.
“I’m happy to control pigs on my land but there’s a council road where the pigs run up and down and it’s the same on the nearby Defence land and other crown land,” explained Joe Marano.
“And therein lies the problem. The pigs have a safe place and as soon as they feel threatened, they go back to their safe place and they breed and multiply.
“In the past five years, I’d say we’ve killed over 4,000 pigs and we’ve still got a pig problem.”
Samoan taro grower Sala Sagato Tuiafiso said he has been using traps and hunters, but his efforts were also being frustrated by a lack of action past his boundary.
“The pigs go into the forest and I can’t control it,” he conceded. “I have hunters with dogs that go through my land but on the other lands, the owners don’t do anything, so what I do doesn’t matter. We have some people who let their pigs out because it makes them fat – you know free food – but they then go into the forest, get a girlfriend or a boyfriend, they make their own family.
“I planted cassava just to hold them away from the taro. It works, but once they’ve eaten the cassava, they come straight back.
“One time we just finished planting taro and the next day they (the pigs) were digging it up.”
Sugarcane grower Donna Campagnolo, who worked on the banana industry’s lead research for Panama TR4, was able to inform the delegation about the program’s research which tracked pig movements.
“In the Tully Valley, their range was set at 11 kilometres – that’s for each genetically discreet group of pigs. But that’s the whole Tully Valley from the top of the gorge all the way through. They’re going to be overlapping everywhere.”
Control measures that were discussed in detail included shooting, baiting, trapping and fencing.
Donna said fencing is expensive and time consuming but can be effective especially when combined with hunters and dogs.
“I go every day to check areas of the fence where the pigs have come under,” she said. “I fix wire and bash the star pickets back down into the ground daily. Pig hunters come every night and if they catch a couple of pigs, they’ll keep coming but the pigs know the areas to stay out of.
“The advantage of the fence is that when the pig hunters come with dogs, the pigs have to find a gap in the fence before the dogs get to them. The dogs bail them up at the fence.”
The Samoan delegation also learned that luring pigs into traps or to eat baits was also a challenge in a wet tropical environment.
“The pig feed is only as good as what you’re willing to put into it,” explained Luke. “I give them grain, I give them pink jelly, I give them vanilla essence, molasses, bananas – I don’t feed my children this good!
“What you put in the trap must be more appealing to them than what they’re currently eating. For us, it’s got to be like candy because the sugarcane is already what they love and it’s hard to draw them out of it.
“It’s also hard to get them to eat out of a hopper when they’ve got free food. If you’ve got a big food source, don’t be fooled into buying an expensive hopper. I made that mistake, and I never killed one pig. I’d hate to see you make that mistake with your money.
In barren country, without another food source, it would work great –but not here.
CANEGROWERS Innisfail has secured funding from the Commonwealth Government and MSF Sugar, through the National Feral Pig Management Coordinator Program managed by Australian Pork Limited, to improve the effectiveness of best practice feral pig management and monitoring techniques for the Wet Tropics sugar industry.
The Samoan delegation’s visit was facilitated by the National Feral Pig Management Coordinator Program, and funded by the Australian and New Zealand Government’s Market Development Facility.
The group also travelled to Cooktown to learn about the feral pig control measures undertaken by Junjuwarra Traditional Owners on Cape York.
