The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries’ newly trained team will be the department’s eyes in the sky when it comes to feral pig monitoring and emergency response.
The group completed helicopter safety training starting with practical underwater escape training and hazard scanning in a helicopter flight simulator.
They then took to the skies with a series of flights where they honed skills in pest surveillance, logging feral pig data and locations using GPS to improve preparedness for emergency animal disease responses such as African swine fever.
The team is now response ready, building DAF’s capacity for aerial surveillance in biosecurity incidents involving pest animals and other emergency responses, including assessing the impact of natural disasters.
