Queensland authorities have killed dozens of feral pigs in suburban Townsville as residents deal with droves of sows and their piglets tearing up gardens and national parks.
Residents in the coastal suburb of Pallarenda are used to seeing the odd feral pig in their neighbourhood, which borders wetlands and flood plains in a popular nature reserve known as the Town Common.
But in the past two weeks they have reported numbers that have not been seen in years.
"They've been here a long while, but not in these numbers," resident Lee Verrall said.
"The entire area is getting dug up by them."
The community has started using social media to track the whereabouts of the pigs, which have been travelling in droves of more than a dozen.
"You're always wary when you walk out the back in case there's a sow with piglets or a big boar," Mr Verrall said.
"It's only a matter of time until somebody's dog has a go at one and gets killed," he said.
Other worried residents were devastated the pigs had destroyed rehabilitated native parkland.
"They have destroyed our manicures (sic) parkland and neibours (sic) newly planted native garden," one social media post said.
"This has to stop," it said.
Dozens of pigs killed in 10 days
Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) said it was addressing the problem but late wet season rain had hampered efforts.
"QPWS have a current trapping program underway, and over the last 10 days have removed 56 pigs," a statement said.
"Prior to this, unseasonal wet weather conditions had limited QPWS's ability to access some trap sites and deliver the scheduled feral animal control activities."
But Mr Verrall said the wet conditions should prompt authorities to prioritise the problem.
"Council blames National Parks, National Parks blames Airservices, Airservices blames the council and National Parks and it just goes around in a loop," Mr Verrall said.
"Everybody says 'it's not our problem'."
Townsville City Council said the location and extent of the control program depended on seasonal feral pig populations.
"Council's feral pig program has caught 411 feral pigs and removed them from across the Townsville local government area in the past 12 months," a council spokesperson said.
Is pig hunting the solution?
Online, locals have joked that creating their own "free-range pork" could be the solution to Pallarenda's pig problem.
But Townsville pig hunter Kitty Le Grant said she thought it could be a legitimate solution, if Queensland created a specific permit to regulate it properly.
"I believe that we should be able to … like you can in New South Wales … get a permit to be able to hunt on sovereign land," she said.
Ms Le Grant said if carried out responsibly, pig hunting could be more effective than baiting and trapping methods.
But she said residents also needed to accept that they were living in an area where pigs would always thrive.
"They have an idea that they'll be living in this beautiful bush and beach area, without having pigs in that area," she said.
"But pigs thrive off eating the fish, they thrive off eating leftovers from what the crocodiles don't eat, they thrive off rooting up around the ground and eating the turtle eggs.
"And when they can't access that – because they've built on wetlands — the pigs are going to get a lot closer."
