Sheep and cropping farmer Alan Bennett, Lawloit, is fighting what he described as "Russian roulette" dingo or wild dog attacks on his flock and has called for action.
He has lost up to 30 ewes in a spate of attacks over the last three weeks and with part of his 4000-ewe Merino flock lambing at the moment, he's become ever-more fearful that the dogs will continue their rampage.
In an interview with Stock & Land, Mr Bennett said he applied for a Department of Energy, Environment, Climate Action (DEECA) permit to control one dingo three weeks ago but has received nothing yet.
He said with a "stroke of a pen", DEECA completely disrupted the long-standing and successful control of wild dogs on farmland around the 750,000 hectare Big Desert Wilderness Park.
He was referring to the Victorian Government's removal of a dingo un-protection order for the north-west of the state on March 13.
The change meant that farmers could now no longer control dingoes within the 3 kilometre buffer between their private land and publicly-owned park land, taking baiting and trapping options off the table.
Mr Bennett warned this new policy left farmers helpless and said it was a "lose, lose" situation for both man and canine.
He said wild dogs were stable in the park for 30 years but now, an overpopulation would lead to more competition for food and the targeting of livestock.
Mr Bennett's land sprawled 4450ha in various blocks and with dingoes roaming up to 10km a night, all his sheep were now vulnerable.
He said in his first attack just over three weeks ago, 13 sheep out of the 200 in the paddock were killed with the rest of the flock ending up "everywhere".
Dingo attacks had continued since then, every couple of days, with one or two sheep killed each episode.
The flock had been attacked five times since the initial incident, the latest a week ago.
Mr Bennett said each attack saw several more sheep wounded and these were later succumbing to their bite marks which turned poisonous.
"They'll bite them and then with the bite marks, a lot of the sheep will die.
"They get blood poisoning and all sorts.
"The cost is in the thousands of dollars now.
"It's exceptionally stressful and very upsetting to see this happening, especially when we are powerless."
He said the dingo or wild dog attacks were the worst he had ever seen on his farm and that in the 10 years prior, he had lost just two sheep in such a way.
Mr Bennett's daughter had spent the last week repairing fences in a bid to keep the dogs at bay.
He said kangaroos had put holes in boundary fencing and the dingoes were opportunistic and random in how they entered the property, encountered sheep, and attacked them.
He said outside of repairing fences, he was a total loss.
Mr Bennett described the new DEECA policy on dingo control in north-west Victoria as "flawed" since its commencement.
"The system had worked really well before that," he said.
"There was no consultation.
"It's become a political hot potato which no one is willing to handle.
"They don't really care about us or our livestock or our well-being."
Mr Bennett said the back-and-forth bureaucracy between himself and DEECA officials was becoming ever-more frustrating.
He said DEECA officials were seeking "irrefutable" proof that the attacks were conducted by dingoes or wild dogs, and wouldn't accept his word.
He was asked to store a dead sheep in a freezer to preserve DNA evidence.
"There's been no acceptance of my story," he said.
The Lawloit farmer said DEECA officials were now installing cameras at the boundary of his property to detect dingo activity.
"It's the lag of everything," he said, as he still waited for the control permit to be granted.
"They are so ill-prepared to handle this."
He said there had been four attacks since he first applied for the permit but the application continued to be assessed by the DEECA officials.
Meanwhile, in a statement to Stock & Land, DEECA defended its record on the control of wild dogs.
DEECA's performance, which included the work of Agriculture Victoria, was analysed by the Victorian Parliament's Public Accounts and Estimates Committee last month.
The committee found that DEECA was not sufficiently removing invasive pests from Victoria's wild areas and farmland.
It found that DEECA was only controlling pest carnivores, including wild dogs and foxes, across a little over 33 per cent of the land area it should have been last year.
Pest control activity was compared against the targets set out under the Biodiversity 2037 strategy.
A spokesperson for the department said it was "making strong progress against our own performance targets".
"Biodiversity 2037 targets and results represent the combined efforts of DEECA, and other government agencies, not-for-profit organisations, businesses, community groups and individuals," they said.
"This is why the targets and results for Biodiversity 2037, which represents the whole state's efforts, will always be bigger than DEECA's alone."
