Protecting farmland
By Jayden Veronese, Year 5, Gordonvale State School
DID you know there are 25 million feral pigs just in Australia? Have you ever had a feral pig in your backyard?
Jayden Veronese is a Year 5 student at Gordonvale State School and he is studying feral pigs.
I AM doing a project on feral pigs because they are causing us lots of issues.
Not only do they chew the cane and sometimes kill dogs, they can also cause environmental problems including erosion of soil into waterways and destruction of habitat for native plants and animals.
My project objectives are to understand how much damage pigs do to our environment, identify their preferred food source, determine how many pigs are in the area, decrease the number of feral pigs in the area by trapping and share these results with farmers.
I have received feedback from Caleb Zaicz and Lewis Defranciscis from Cairns Regional Council and Ben Solowiej, a Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service ranger.
My family and Mulgrave Landcare Catchment Group members have assisted me.
There have been lots of challenges for me including dingoes eating the food source inside and outside of the traps, pigs ignoring the food source and pigs walking into the trap but not staying inside the trap long enough to be caught.
Trail cameras have been helpful in recording the presence of pigs.
If you have a feral pig problem, I would be interested in adding this information to my data. Please contact me via ktrol4@eq.edu.au