Bush pigs run rampant
Calls to cull hogs causing chaos
EVEN pigs love a slice of paradise – just ask beachfront residents at the tourism hotspot of Mission Beach.
A few years ago wallabies invaded the southern suburbs of Wongaling and South Mission Beach. Now it’s bush pigs.
The pigs are digging up the gardens of upscale beachfront homes and generally making themselves comfortable in what used to be a hog- free zone. Now, it is hog heaven.
Truus Biddlecombe’s home, at Wongaling, overlooks the shimmering ocean. Her backyard however, is a different story. It looks to have been ploughed in readiness to plant a crop. Pigs that come in the night turn over the ground as effectively as a disc plough.
Yesterday morning the Cassowary Coast Regional Council installed a pig trap in her backyard. The trap will be baited with bananas. Ms Biddlecombe has no doubt it will catch pigs and perhaps the odd cassowary, but she doubts it will be the answer to the problems facing the residents of Mission Beach.
She says yards are being invaded by pigs every night and people don’t know what is being done at the council level.
“It’s frustrating because council won’t tell the community what it is doing. I think they are worried that pig hunters will come in with dogs and that the cassowaries will be placed at risk,” she said.
Cassowary Coast Mayor John Kremastos said traps had been deployed and he was working with the State Gov- ernment in trying to bring the pig problem under control.
“Pig control is an ongoing program, but now it has been elevated,” he said.
“We have captured 20 pigs with a large round trap at Wongaling Beach. We know it is a problem and we are working on it.”
Residents Tom Orr and Peter and Helen O’Bryan also worry about the pigs, which are rapidly breeding. The pigs eat the eggs of nesting turtles and crocodiles. They believe it is logical to assume cassowary eggs would be on the menu.
“It’s breeding season for the cassowaries. The pigs will target their eggs,” Ms Biddlecombe said.
She said the council was talking about forming a com- mittee and implementing a management plan.
“By the time they do all that the pigs will have bred up even more in numbers. Pigs are a pest like weeds. Why doesn’t council treat them the same way they treat weeds?”
Mr and Mrs O’Bryan come from Melbourne and spend four months of the year at their Mission Beach house.
They have created a beautiful garden, one which they used to take great pride in.
Now, they wake up to find garden beds ploughed up and plants lying uprooted in the soil each morning. Painstakingly, they replant the uprooted plants and do what they can to deter the animals.
As a last resort Mrs O’Bryan said she would sprinkle cayenne pepper on the beds.
“They are unstoppable. It’s heartbreaking. All the things you’ve bought, loved and nurtured, destroyed,” she said.
Tom Orr said the pigs were at the point where they no longer worried about humans.
He said feral pigs had been mismanaged by governments and funding shortfalls over the last decade had allowed the feral pest to run rampant.
“It used to be under control when there was a management plan, but not anymore,” he said.
Ms Biddlecombe said the pigs were digging up yards from Bingil Bay at Mission Beach’s northern end to South Mission Beach.
“They have so many areas here where they can hide during the day. There is the Hull River National Park, creeks everywhere and, of course, rainforest,” she said.