East Gippsland’s burgeoning wild dog population has come too close for comfort for Brodribb River farmer Ian Webb, who has taken the extraordinary step of billing the State Government for stock losses.
Fed up with persistent attacks on his livestock, Mr Webb last week presented a $4500 invoice to the Orbost office of Parks Victoria. The bill accounts for 21 lambs killed, a mauled ewe and a highly stressed ewe that subsequently aborted her lamb.
Alongside the invoice, Mr Webb submitted a formal statutory declaration detailing the incidents, backed by photographic evidence of the predators.
Among the evidence is a photograph of a massive yellow wild dog shot on the morning of May 22, following a raid on May 18–19 where a pack slaughtered 20 lambs. Local shooters reportedly waited through the night to down the animal.
“After this attack I locked up the sheep overnight and some of the dogs got within 200 metres of the house looking for the sheep,” Mr Webb stated in his statutory declaration. Further photographic evidence shows another two wild dogs shot on the property on March 28.
Mr Webb warned the crisis will continue to escalate across the region without urgent intervention.
“This situation will just get worse and worse,” Mr Webb said.
“The dogs are breeding up, they need more staff, more trappers out in the Park. The wild dog bounty should be still on.”
The Brodribb River incursions reflect a wider problem across East Gippsland, with producers in Glenaladale and Swifts Creek also reporting significant wild dog activity.
Mr Webb believes the population boom is being directly sustained by current public land management practices.
“I don’t blame them, it’s not the wild dogs’ fault, is it? I blame Parks for feeding the dogs and letting the numbers breed up,” he said.
“Parks are the ones shooting horses and deer and leaving them in the bush. Everything shot should be shifted – either carted out or buried.”
According to the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) website, the Victorian Deer Control Program maintains that culling leftovers do not drive wild dog numbers.
The department’s official guidelines state that evidence suggests wild dogs are specialist hunters preferring freshly killed food, making them unlikely to be attracted by older carcasses. DEECA asserts that deer control remains are unlikely to provide a regular or reliable enough food source to sustain population growth.
However, Mr Webb strongly disputed the department’s position, noting he has witnessed dog numbers build into packs of up to four in his immediate area.
“We don’t really want to bait, we don’t want to kill the natives like the quolls and the potoroos,” he said, adding that local wallaby numbers appeared to have plummeted.
“I have two dogs of my own. I work them, I tie them up and I feed them. There are dogs in the Park, they’re feeding them and then they’re killing my sheep.
The only difference is I tie my dogs up.”
The proximity of the apex predators has also raised safety concerns within the tight-knit Brodribb River settlement, where the sound of nighttime howling has become regular. Mr Webb noted a recent incident where local children yabbying in the area fled after spotting four wild dogs tracking behind them.
“These dogs are 300 metres from the three or four houses around there. You don’t need them stalking kids. Who will take the responsibility if a kid gets killed?” Mr Webb said.
