Feral Pigs area massive problem

2023 saw the wild pig population soar, to at least 11 hanging around Rocklily. Pigs are not native to Australia and NSW is having an explosion in numbers never seen before. Pigs are omnivores and eat plants and animals.  Besides tearing up over 50% of the grass we had the fairy wrens and other smaller ground nesting birds have slowly disappeared as their habitat is destroyed. Just one nights digging around the pig trap.  

All the wild joey wombats  from 2022 seemed to disappear and the 2023-24 all the joey wombats definitely disappeared and we have pigs on camera constantly at burrows.

Little Annie just disappeared. Now Buble has moved back into the wombatorium with her second joey, pigs, dogs and foxs have not worked out wombat door yet! 

Yes we have wild dogs/dingos, cats and foxs, but never in the numbers of that the pigs are breading in 2023-24. Pigs are very clever and work in a team hunting down their next meal. Its been a mission for over 12 months with pig traps to get the numbers down.  We have had hunters in the get a couple and scatter them all, making it harder to deal with.

We no sooner get them down and a few more appear.   We trapped 5 cats in 2023 and we have only gotten 1 so far this year and know of 3 here were seeing on camera. Its just a fact of life living next to a national park.  Most people will get upset but if we do nothing as we found there are not any wildlife left locally. Are we upset about having to do this yes we are.  A farmer 20k away put out poison baets got 72 first night and 32 second night, horrific.  

We have moved the pig trap to the valley below the house, we did no good when trying to train pigs with one way door. Warwick then designed a remote method with a solenoid to close gate. First week we got 13 pigs, we are now close to 20 and almost filled our second pit we leave something out for the local Wedge tail eagles 

Its more human than, poison bates. And nothing else will die eating them. 

Sadly they are just in the wrong place, it has taken months for us to fix the mess,so we have grass again and the wildlife to return, pigs really move wildlife away. 

Its tough being a wildlife carer after the fires with all the new issues we have never had to deal with before.