Page 7 - Australian Pork Newspaper

Surveillance and monitoring of feral pigs
Judging commences July 11 for the AMIC Charcuterie Excellence Awards.
Awards celebrate pork
Pork Provenance
SINCE the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Australian Pork Lim- ited has unfortunately not been able to run the PorkMark Ham and Bacon Awards.
This year, we are ex- cited to announce that instead, APL has part- nered with the Aus- tralian Meat Industry Council to launch a bigger and better awards program – the Australian Charcuterie Excellence Awards.
All entries will be judged by an impressive line-up of judges, con- sisting of fleischermeis- ters, award-winning and celebrity chefs, artisan smallgoods makers and industry legends.
July 11-15, 2022 at the Willian Angliss Insti- tute in Melbourne and the awards dinner will be August 31, 2022.
The competition will be a celebration of Australian smallgoods made with Australian pork.
For more details about the competition, search AMIC Charcuterie Excellence Awards on your internet browser.
These awards will be the premier competi- tion for the Australian smallgoods industry, highlighting and recog- nising products that are made with quality and excellence.
Gold, silver and bronze medals will be up for grabs in line with set judging criteria, which will be points based.
Australian Pork Lim- ited is excited for this partnership to drive awareness of the quality of products made with Australian pork as part of the valuable prov- enance marketing pro- gram.
The competition is open to all manufact- urers of Australian smallgoods products – AMIC members and non-members – across five categories of bacon, ham, fermented salami, dry or cured and general smallgoods.
The highest point scorer in each category will be awarded the Australian category champion.
by PAM SANTIAGO
All winners will be able to use the award medal and the Aus- tralian PorkMark logo for their product pack- aging and marketing materials.
Together with on- going licencing of the Australian Pork Pork- Mark logo, APL will continue to promote and celebrate products made with Australian pork.
Judging commences
* from P6
ment bushfire funding ar- rangements.
The thermal camera pro- vides the ability for the marksman to follow and engage each animal one by one to enable a humane kill.
thermal cameras enable feral pigs to be more easily and reliably de- tected in the landscape, reducing the incidence of ‘unknowns’.
has been gained by the WRPP.
Many different stake- holders on the island are involved.
Sodium nitrite baits – marketed as Hoggone – and trapping and ground shooting are being used as part of the on-ground management program to remove small populations of feral pigs as they are identified.
Automated software or trained observers can be used for processing of footage collected.
The ability to monitor changes in population density over time as an outcome of management actions has attracted ad- ditional funding for the project.
A number of innovative control and monitoring techniques are being used to achieve this objective.
It was recommended that expert advice be sought to carefully plan your aerial survey design.
Outcomes are also used to encourage landholders to participate in the pro- ject as well as identify those landholders who are not meeting their general biosecurity duty.
Thermal assisted aerial culling is being strategi- cally applied, targeting inaccessible areas on the island – such as deep creek lines and in thick recovering vegetation.
A camera trap network has been installed and en- vironmental DNA meth- odology is also available to test water samples for feral pig presence. Thermal aerial surveys – essential for success
NSW Riverina Local Land Services are working with Dr Andrew Bengsen from NSW De- partment of Primary In- dustries on this.
Details of each demon- stration site and outcomes being achieved can be found on their dedicated webpages on the NFPAP website – feralpigs.com. au
Operations are being conducted primarily in the colder months of the year, at dawn and dusk.
Repeatability in how this is conducted is key to obtaining meaningful data.
Resources required, including the helicopter, thermal imaging equip- ment, firearms and per- sonnel, were outlined.
Suzie Holbery stated that thermal aerial sur- veys have been used by the Western Riverina Pest Project since 2016 for the monitoring of feral pig populations.
Factors to consider when designing aerial surveys include the environ- ment and landscape type, timing, location and di- rection of transects flown, altitude, camera angle, speed of the helicopter and method used to ana- lyse data collected.
The innovative man- agement, monitoring and engagement approaches being applied in these programs continue to be featured as part of NFPAP stakeholder engagement activities.
Notably, the thermal camera operator is also a qualified pilot, which enables clear communica- tions with the helicopter pilot.
While monitoring could be done using a camera trap network, this is not practical in the project area due to fluctuations in water heights in the wetlands.
Feel free to contact me on heather.channon@ feralpigs.com.au or call 0423 056 045 to discuss your feral pig manage- ment issues or any infor- mation presented in this article.
A key difference be- tween conventional aerial shooting and TA AC is that the helicopter is flown at a higher altitude.
Affordability with its implementation is also a major consideration.
Animals therefore do not run and scatter.
Compared with conven- tional aerial surveying,
Significant value from conducting aerial surveys
A small group of feral pigs in bushland detected by a thermal camera.
www.porknews.com.au
Australian Pork Newspaper, July 2022 – Page 7
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