Man creates weapon to fight feral pigs
THERE’S a new weapon in the fight against feral pigs in Southern Queensland and it’s coming by way of ground-breaking research from Warwick man Darren Marshall.
Also an auxiliary firefighter in the Rose City, Mr Marshall works in feral animal research, control and monitoring for the Queensland Murray Darling Committee.
With a background in applied science, majoring in natural resource management through Southern Cross University, Mr Marshall spent years working closely with landowners searching for answers to their feral pig problems.
“I worked with groups of 10 to 12 landholders at a time, but not all within the group had tackling the feral animal problem as a priority,” he said.
“So we needed to find another approach.
“That’s how this new direction came about.”
Over the past 12 months Mr Marshall, along with a few committed landholders, has been trapping and attaching GPS collars to feral pigs at several sites in southern Queensland and northern New South Wales.
“This allows us to track the movements of the pigs in real time,” he said.
“Every 30 minutes the collars register a waypoint and every six hours those points are transmitted to the satellite and I can track their movements on my computer.
“The main thing this information does is allow us to see the habits of the animal and also to dispel a number of myths that landowners have.”
Mr Marshall said the solution to controlling wild pigs was a co-ordinated effort.