Feral animals
The CLC is actively consulting traditional owners to reach mutually agreeable solutions to many feral animal issues. Traditional owners frequently express concern about feral ungulates (hoofed mammals) in relation to their impact on traditional water sources, including rock holes and soakages, the decline of certain important resource plants and environmental degradation in and around living areas.
More than a million feral camels are roaming across
Australia destroying vegetation, infrastructure and sacred sites
A dedicated feral animal awareness officer is being appointed by the CLC to improve the awareness of traditional owners to feral animal issues. The officer will be relating to TOs the damage feral animals can do to water holes, rock holes and soackages, sacred sites and the impact they can have on the prevalence of bush tucker.
The management of feral animals in Central Australia must be approached with the understanding that Aboriginal culture dictates a vastly different view of the world to non-Aboriginal people.
The CLC’s Cross Cultural Land Management Project prepared by Bruce Rose in 1995 found that, Aboriginal people recognise that most feral animals are newcomers to the lands but their presence has been generally accepted.
This has required a greater emphasis to be placed on educating traditional owners on the affects feral animals have on country as both the social and cultural histories of Aboriginal people can be in conflict with plans to control feral numbers.
Aboriginal people have worked with horses, camels and donkeys, rabbits and feral cats are consumed in some areas and many feral animals are seen to have the right to be present through their long association with the country.
Other species such as donkeys and camels are seen as having religious significance because they feature in Bible stories, while some Aboriginal people say the cat arrived before Europeans, has its own Dreaming and is part of the natural environment.
Aboriginal people often see the use of the land’s resources by all animals as natural and disapprove of killing feral animals if they are only going to be wasted and not eaten.
The CLC in recent times has worked extensively with traditional owners in the north-west of the CLC region and the NT government on the control of feral donkeys and horses. In response to the declaration of the Victoria River District as a pest control area in 2000, the CLC facilitated agreements between the traditional owners of the Aboriginal Land Trusts and the NT Government allowing for the aerial shooting of feral donkeys and horses.
Donkeys and horses have also been removed by commercial pet-meat companies.
Feral animal control in the VRD will be ongoing throughout 2008, including the training of community rangers in aerial platform shooting.
Feral camels have become an increasing issue, with there being an estimated 500,000 camels throughout the arid regions of Australia. In recent years the CLC has helped facilitate camel removal from many Aboriginal Land Trusts.
Community ranger groups have been involved in waterhole protection work at Docker River, Mutitjulu, Santa Teresa, Ti Tree, Nyirripi and Tennant Creek.
The CLC has also helped develop a camel farm on the Haasts Bluff Land Trust, which is providing jobs and income to Traditional Owners from the mustering and sale of camels.
Hopes of building up markets for feral animals and their meat have been limited because there is only a very small market for feral animals, including for pet food. This is partly because the resource is spread over large, inaccessible areas.
In 2008 the CLC will develop and implement an education campaign about the impact of feral animals, in conjunction with capacity building in communities to provide the ability to deal with feral animal problems. The CLC has also been working closely with researchers from the Desert Knowledge CRC who are undertaking cross-jurisdictional management planning on feral camels.
Traditional owners and the CLC are also working on the management of feral horses on Aboriginal land adjoining areas of the West MacDonnell National Park, at Mungkarta near Tennant Creek, and have helped facilitate the mustering and sale of hundreds of horses from near Santa Teresa.
Community ranger groups are also eager to participate in a proposed survey of dingoes and feral dogs with the aim of identifying areas where dingoes are genetically purest, and to assist with targeting areas requiring management of feral dogs.
