Quolls Policy: Just a Plot?

In the High Country some graziers believe environmentalists are using native quolls as an excuse to drive them from their land.

Cute, cuddly and cat-like, quolls belong to a group of meat-eating marsupials known as Dasyurids.  Found only in Australia and New Guinea, they are thought to be threatened in particular by predation from foxes and wild dogs.

Wild dogs eat more than quolls.  They also prey on kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, possums, sheep and calves.  In the regions bordering Kosciusko National Park large areas have been de-stocked because of continuous and significant livestock losses.

So you would think that perhaps the environmentalists and graziers could join forces to control wild dog and fox numbers?

During the past three years there has been a successful program in the Brindabella region involving trappers.  This program will be extended to Monaro and its surrounds.

But many say the cost-effective answer is aerial baiting with the poison 1080 -- a program banned in southern NSW in the late 1990s because of concerns that quolls might be susceptible to 1080.

Many scientists and graziers argue that quolls are much more susceptible to increasing dog and fox numbers.

There has been over 20 years of research into the possible effects of 1080 baiting on native Australian animals including quolls.

A recent study just published in the journal Australian Wildlife Research tracked 57 quolls with radio-collars during four experimental baitings in north east New South Wales.

Interestingly, while the quolls often took the baits, they subsequently discarded them.

The study concluded that the baiting did not threaten any of the quoll populations sampled.

The results from this study accord with other published studies, including an extensive aerial baiting study in Western Australia, where quoll populations increased -- probably due to the removal of the predators.

Aerial baiting with 1080 is an integral part of feral animal control programs in both Queensland and Western Australia -- two states with more diverse quoll populations.

This should be good news for quolls and livestock in the High Country.

But when I recently discussed these findings with a High Country grazier, the response was that quolls are not really the issue.

It was suggested that "the politics of the national park is anti-grazing" with the quolls the excuse.

"They will hatch something else to obstruct dog control.  They like the dogs because they have forced us to de-stock", the grazier said.

Others hold a similar view.

However, I hope this cynic got it wrong, and that there is still a place for the man from Snowy River, quolls and wombats in the High Country.

A reversal of the 1997 decision to ban aerial baiting with 1080 would be a gesture of good will.  Perhaps it would be a much needed life-line for quolls and other wildlife suffering the effects of fire, drought and intense predation.

ADVERTISEMENT