Proceedings of the Vertebrate Pest Conference

Feral pigs occupy 40% of Australia along with numerous other countries. They cost Australian agriculture greater than AUD$100 M annually through stock predation and crop, pasture, and infrastructure damage. Broad-scale, integrated poisoning campaigns, predominantly using Compound 1080, are the most practical and cost-effective control method in Australia. However, the lack of a target-specific toxicant and bait for feral pigs means that baiting campaigns can place non-target species at risk. Confounding this is the wide distribution and diet of feral pigs in Australia, which means that no current single bait is effective for all feral pigs. A potential solution to this problem is to use the known ecology, genetics, and socio-biology of feral pigs in different habitats to design bait(s) with increased target specificity, then combine this with habitat-specific operating procedures inferred from ecological and genetic studies to reduce non-target exposure. This process is currently underway in Australia. Habitat-independent characteristics of feral pigs that can be used to develop target-specific baits are their large size and strong jaws, their keen sense of smell, their poor vision, their omnivorous diet, and their nocturnal and fossorial nature. Producing large, tough, odorous, dyed (to deter birds), meat and vegetable (to deter obligatory carnivores or herbivores) baits that are laid at night and buried where possible will make feral pig baits more target specific and reduce non-target exposure. Current pen and field trials of bait prototypes in a range of habitats are confirming this. Appropriate baiting regimes for feral pigs in different habitats, as determined through ecology and genetics and subsequent field trials, are presently being determined and transformed into standard operating procedures to lessen non-target exposure. The planned incorporation of more target-specific toxins or ‘Achilles Heel’ approaches in the future should further increase the target specificity and humaneness of broad-scale feral pig control. This protocol can potentially improve target-specificity of baits and baiting procedures for other pest animals.