INTEGRATED pest management and public-private co-operation are essential in the battle against wild dogs.
That was the message from the Department of Primary Industries, the Victorian Wild Dog Advisory Committee and national wild dog facilitator Greg Mifsud last week.
The forum, attended by about 100 people, was held in conjunction with the advisory committee's consultation meetings with Agriculture Minister Peter Walsh.
Victorian Wild Dog Advisory Committee president and Tallangatta producer Michael McCormack said they were calling for all sides to embrace the nil-tenure approach to wild dog control.
"It is everybody's problem – we all have to work together in a co-operative manner to get something done," Mr McCormack said.
"Co-operation and working together – that is what we are calling for.
"People stood up and said baiting doesn't work, and we knew that would happen, but they need to think about what they can do to help."
NSW Department of Primary Industries' (DPI) Peter Fleming demonstrated the success of both ground and air baiting in trials in NSW, and was supported by a number of Victorian wild dog stakeholders, but producers in the crowd remained skeptical.
Mr Mifsud presented figures on baiting success in Victoria and said the State had moved towards "best practice" in the past three years, incorporating trapping and baiting into its fight against wild dogs.
"The opportunities are there to hedge your bets through both trapping and baiting dogs," he said.
"We need to move away from the 'cricket score' mentality of how many dogs we have killed and focus on how many sheep or livestock we have saved."
Meanwhile, landholder volunteers in Gippsland will start a community baiting program on Crown land this month after petitioning the Victorian DPI to lay wild dog baits beyond the three-kilometre buffer zone.
The program will see producers work with DPI wild dog controllers to bait public land ad-joining farms in the Ensay region.
Producers known as the Get Sheep Back To Ensay group applied to the DPI to bait further into the public land and will now operate a pilot program for DPI co-ordinated community baiting.
Ensay farmer and group member Ken Skews told the forum Australia had a strong history of volunteerism and this was a time when people needed to get together and combat the issue.
He said DPI resources could not keep up with dogs in the problem areas.
"There is a 6300km interface between bush and farm land in the area, which equates to 1000 square kilometres per dogger – it's simply not possible.
Mr Skew said while baiting was not the "silver bullet", it didn't require a lot of individual effort to have an impact.
"Baiting is working, along with the other tools, but there are still no sheep in Ensay," he said.
DPI invasive plants and animals officer John Balfour supported community baiting and told producers the North East region was well behind Gippsland when it came to the number of community baiting programs.
"The interface initiative alone, if taken up by community baiting groups, could have a real impact," he said.
* Full story in this week's Stock & Land.