Upon her return to Parliament next week, Nationals Member for Mildura, Jade Benham, will ask the Minister for Environment on why Northwest Victoria is being thrown to the dogs?
Ms Benham has had sheep graziers call her office reporting, up to 30 lambs mauled in a single night.
Once a wild dog is on private land it is too late, and it is impossible to trap a dog in an open paddock. These attacks aren’t timed therefore you cannot have 24-hour protection.
“Landowners are doing their best to protect their livestock, but it is the government letting them down.
“These dogs don’t hunt for food it is a sport for them, lambs are often left bleeding out for graziers to put down and clean up the mess.”
“Why is the Minister jeopardising the critically endangered Mallee Fowl that exists over feral dogs welfare?” Ms Benham added.
A petition launched by Member for Gippsland East, Tim Bull calls for the “urgent need to recommit to the wild dog control program, and requests:
- The three-kilometre buffer zone for controlling dogs be retained without alteration,
• All control measures currently available to doggers be retained without alteration,
• The annual publishing of the number and location of wild dogs euthanised by doggers, and
• The annual publishing of stock losses and reports made by community members in relation to wild dog attacks.
“There is a clear lack of understanding of the importance of the program in this city-centric government, they really have no idea of the impact on the ground,” said Mr Bull.
“Time and again it has been explained that to remove the three-kilometre buffer zone (an area where doggers can undertake controls on public land adjacent to private freehold) would spell disaster.
The online petition can be signed here: https://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/get-involved/petitions/victorias-wild-dog-program/