The Victorian Farmers Federation (VFF) has welcomed a one year extension to the Wild Dog Management Plan after calling for its renewal.
VFF Livestock Group Vice-President and Tallangatta farmer Peter Star said the move was common sense.
“It just made sense to extend the highly successful Wild Dog Management Plan.”
“The Wild Dog Management Plan is a nation leading initiative that protects both farmers and our native wildlife.”
“The VFF is looking forward to continuing engaging with the Government on the many benefits that the Wild Dog management program delivers and will advocate for programs strengthening and extension over the next year,” Mr Star said.
The Wild Dog Management Plan has been a successful wildlife management program since launching in 2012. It has helped deliver both conservation and pest management objectives, including a 75 per cent reduction in livestock loss and attacks on properties that neighbour public lands in the east and south-west Victoria since 2012.
Wild dog control in the three-kilometre Livestock protection buffer will continue for the next year to deliver positive outcomes for producers over the following calendar year. However, the long-term future of the program remains in doubt.
Mr Star added that attention would now turn to extending the program past 2024.
“Although it’s disappointing that the program has only been extended for a year, we welcome the opportunity to engage with the Government to ensure the program is extended.”
“Claims that the program threatens Victoria’s dingo population are baseless and are built on a lack of rigorous scientific evidence. What we do know is wild dogs pose a significant threat to Victoria’s farming communities and there’s no lack of evidence of that,” Mr Star said.
The VFF will continue to strongly advocate for the continuation of the program to protect livestock producers from the effects of wild dogs and dingo-dog hybrids while also ensuring that native wildlife is protected from the ravages of wild dogs and dingo hybrids.