The video is taken down the barrel of a rifle. In the frame is a dog wearing chest and neck protection, harrying a wild boar. The tall dry grass, among straggly bush and scattered termite mounds typical of far north Queensland, obscures the action. The dog barks and circles then leaps from lethal tusks as the cornered beast charges. “That’ll do,” says a voice. The dog stands off. A single shot sounds and the boar falls.
The voice belongs to a woman named Natasha, who asked that her surname not be used.
Natasha and her husband, Daniel, supplement their income through Boaring Australia, a YouTube channel that documents their pig hunting across the country.
Despite the grisly public perception, Natasha says it’s “not a blood sport”.
“We promote pig hunting as something you can do recreationally as a family,” she says.
“For the kids (Donnie, 4, and Aleah, 7) it is like exploring every time we go hunting. They are so aware of their surroundings and are always fossicking and looking for bush tucker. They probably know more about the bush than most men.”
There is no shortage of their chosen game. Feral pigs cover 45% of the Australian landmass, and the Invasive Species Council estimates their numbers fall between two and four million, depending on the season. They cause $106.5m worth of damage to the agricultural sector each year – not including environmental damage, which leads to biodiversity loss – and they play a role in spreading deadly diseases such as melioidosis.
Feral pigs have a devastating impact on the landscape, threatening the habitat of 149 threatened species by digging up soil and vegetation, fouling waterways and preying on smaller animals such as reptiles, frogs and eggs, including turtle eggs. They are also, the council says, “vectors for diseases” including leptospirosis, brucellosis and foot-and-mouth disease. If a foot-and-mouth outbreak were to hit Australia, spread by feral pigs, the economic losses are predicted to be as much as $50bn.
And unlike some other invasive species, there is no publicity campaign against shooting them.
All this means is that the recreational hunting of feral pigs is common. But the Invasive Species Council says that funding such hunters “as a primary method of control is a waste of taxpayers’ money”.
The National Feral Pig Action Plan, endorsed in October 2021, suggests using a range of methods to control pig numbers, including shooting, baiting, trapping and fencing. At least 70% of the feral pig population must be culled every year “just to keep a lid on population growth”, says Dr Heather Channon, the management coordinator at the National Feral Pig Action Plan.
“Our aim is to get populations of feral pigs down as low as possible, and to keep them there over the long term, because we know that if we don’t – if we start and then stop – they will recover very quickly,” Channon says.
Channon believes the most effective way to control large numbers of pigs is with aerial shooting, followed by baiting and trapping, but she sees a role for the recreational hunter. “If you’ve only got a small number of pigs in an area then ground shooting becomes a very feasible and practical method.”
‘We practice ethical hunting’
In northern New South Wales, farmers Scott Stewart and Stewart Walker are harvesting on Coolootai Station, north of Warialda. Stewart is on the header and begins on the paddock perimeters, leaving isolated stands of tall, yellowed wheat that quiver with unseen menace. “Pigs get into the crop, they live in the crop and make nests,” he says. “If you don’t get on top of them they can wipe out acres, just flatten them.”
As the refuge of unharvested wheat becomes smaller with each passing run of the header, the trembling intensifies until a mob of 30 feral pigs breaks from cover. Waiting is Walker, standing on the roof of a truck with rifle in hand. “When they stick their heads out they get a bullet,” Stewart says.
Stewart and Walker employ all tools in the feral pig management toolbox. When crops are small they bait and trap pigs but as the crops come into grain, meaning well-fed pigs, they resort to aerial shooting, which can cost them $4,000 per half-day with helicopter hire, fuel and ammunition. They do this twice a year.
“We did a chopper shoot here six weeks ago and shot 431 pigs in five hours over 8,000 acres,” Stewart says. “But we also have blokes that come out with dogs who might get a dozen pigs a night. These days they have thermal scopes and can see pigs across the other side of the paddock and with no light the pigs don’t seem to worry as much. Recreational hunters can be effective.”
Pig hunting is sometimes portrayed as one of the last bastions of the rural redneck, but the Game Hunters Association of Australia (GHAA), which has been in operation for 25 years and has more than 500 members, promotes a different image.
“We don’t go out there and blast everything that moves. We practice ethical hunting,” says Leigh Bernhardt, the GHAA president.
“We work with the property owner to target pest species. For example, he may have pigs on a crop and we will go in and clear them.
“We like to hunt [at distances of] between 50 to 150 metres because that involves hunting and stalking, and whenever you pull that trigger you have to know where that bullet is going to go. If an animal is wounded our policy says you must track it down and finish it.”
Members of GHAA must hold a current gun licence and undergo mandatory training that covers hunter ethics, safety, policy, insurance and first aid. “The property owner is assured they [the shooters] are people we have vetted, trained and are competent and capable,” Bernhardt says.
The GHAA does not disallow the use of dogs in pig hunting but it also does not endorse it. It says it prefers cutting-edge technologies such as thermal scopes that allow hunters to “see” animals that the human eye misses, giving an edge to the predator over their prey.
Yet for all the training and technology, Bernhardt acknowledges the role of recreational hunters in controlling feral pigs is “a contentious issue”, but adds, “if you ask the farmers they couldn’t do without us”.
“Pigs spread brucellosis, they destroy crops and pasture, they spread disease, they ruin native habitat, they degrade soil and water, they eat the native species,” he says. “The last thing the farmer wants is a bunch of pigs coming through doing all that.”
Mandy McKeesick is a writer from central Queensland
