Feral animals
"We need to strip the sentimentality out of the debate and stop worrying about eating Wilbur, Bambi, Thumper, Pussy, White Fang, Reynard, Thowra and Storm, or exporting them to people happy to eat or use them, and instead see clearly that if we do not manage our land we will be left with a desert, whether we personally choose to eat or use these animals or not" Elena Garcia - Socialist Alliance
This post is brought on by the recent invasion of Eltham by deer. Like many of Australia's pest species, they are beautiful animals. But they are destroying trees - our grandson's ex Christmas tree which was planted with great ceremony when he was about two and which was quietly flourishing - has been one victim - one of my olive trees another. And yes I do know that pine trees are in themselves a pest species, but we or a future owner of this house would probably have cut it down at some point. The deer are more of a problem and Nillumbik Council is currently undertaking a culling program with licensed shooters. Well they hope to anyway. We already have problems with foxes and rabbits. Deer are just the latest thing.
I'm not planning to talk about the individual pest species here - they are all interesting in their own very different ways and deserve individual posts. So I sense a series coming up.
What I was planning to do was ponder on a couple of general questions about pest species.
First of all, surely we can do better than just shooting or poisoning or trapping them and then just disposing of them. I did see in passing that they are looking at ways of eliminating them through low fertility - from faulty genes introduced into the species. Good idea - I hope they can get it to work. Then most of these animals (not all) can be eaten - at least by pets. The last time I went to New Zealand I was amazed at the number of deer farms I saw. Almost every restaurant had venison on the menu. Now I know that there are some deer farms here, but surely we could have more. Venison is a prized meat in Europe. Food of the rich and all that. So can't they be rounded up and farmed? Ditto for goats, water buffalo, wild boar, camels and rabbits. In Europe they love to go hunting for wild boar and it features on many menus throughout France and Italy at least.
But I guess I am being naive. Australia is so big. I'm sure there are major problems in rounding up these animals, even hunting them. In France, even though there are quite large wild forested areas, they are not that big in comparison to Australia, and so it is much more feasible to go hunting for wild boar. And hunting in rural France and Italy is a major thing. A weekend - nay everyday - activity, which is actually fairly tightly regulated and organised. I do think it happens here and there in Australia, but possibly not enough. I found an article on harvesting wild goats in WA for export. Apparently this has supplied WA farmers with valuable extra income, but in recent years the numbers seem to be declining. So maybe that's a scheme that's working.
Elena Garcia who provided the quote at the top of the page is a marginal farmer in Queensland, and so understands the problem. It's an interesting article that she wrote and from a farmer's point of view that points out the problems and the costs to the farmers.
And it's not just food that these animals could provide. Milk (buffalo mozzarella anyone?), fur, leather, wool. The mother of my son's Mongolian partner recently gave me a beautiful warm scarf made from camel fur.
A more philosophical question is whether we should just let evolution take its course. Well it's not quite evolution - it's evolution which has been tampered with by humans - we introduced most of these pest species after all. But survival of the fittest and all that. After all homo sapiens was an intruder - a pest species that wiped out the Neanderthals. And in some areas of Australia the kangaroo - a native species - is definitely considered to be a pest. Because it disrupts agriculture, the agriculture which has made it possible for the kangaroo population to flourish.
Of course Australia would be changed forever if these pest species were allowed to flourish. Som native species would disappear, but would this matter? Well of course, it would, and not just because biodiversity is a 'good' thing and we don't want to lose our beautiful native animals. Those animals all have their role to play in a finely balanced ecosystem. And it would also destroy the land - brumby's hooves are not good for the land - but then neither are cattle or sheep. All imponderables really. But you have to admire the adaptability of the pests.
Obviously we have to adapt too. We either have to find a way of actually eliminating them, or we have to use them, exploit them, make money out of them. And we probably need government help for that. The money that Nillumbik has budgeted for the deer cull has come from the state government I believe.
"If setting up a feral animal harvest industry was subsidised federally, not only would controlling these destructive animals be affordable, it would produce a viable supplementary income for farmers instead of being a financial burden and a terrible waste of resources which could instead be a viable export industry." Elena Garcia - Socialist Alliance
