Research Shows the Greens can't read research papers but does not show Ad-Hoc Hunting harms feral control!

August 26, 2013 at 7:53pm

In a recent exchange I was pointed to the research that GreensJeremy & GreenCate have referred to when saying hunting is

•  ineffective as a control and
• enhances breading and immigration rates

Here is GreensJeremy making the claim:



Here is GreenCate making the claim (and Bio Security NSW response)




The Paper is titled:
EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF REGIONAL FOXCONTROL PROGRAMS
LLYNETTE McLEOD, GLEN SAUNDERS, STEVEMcLEOD AND MICHELLE WALTER
VERTEBRATE PEST RESEARCH UNIT
NSW DEPARTMENT OF PRIMARY INDUSTRIES
SEPTEMBER 2007

You can read it in full here:
http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/365353/Effective-fox-control-programs.pdf


Here is the the section of the Report they often point to (on page 56):

Shooting is a very selective method of control (Beasom 1974), however past Australian studies have described it as an ineffective method in significantly reducing fox population numbers, particularly over the long term (Coman 1988, Newsome et al. 1989, Fleming 1997). Reasons for this ineffectiveness include the biasing towards younger, less wary individuals (Coman 1988) which, although altering the age structure of the population, is thought not to necessarily lead to a decline in the population or to the impacts these foxes cause. The compensatory effects of the culled population may also allow the remaining animals’ survival and breeding to be enhanced, immigration rates to increase, and dispersal rates to decrease (Caughley 1977). Newsome et al. (1989) report that the replacement rate of foxes was very high after an intensive shooting campaign conducted in western NSW.

Here are a couple of immediate problems:

1>Selective & biased towards younger less wary individuals = TRUE
Problem with using this as the basis for your "hunting is not effective" argument is that you have to ignore the CSIRO Study "Improving Management Strategies for the Red fox"  Wildlife Research Vol 28, 2001.

Which says - strategies that focus on juvenile and young adults will be the most effective strategies for fox control


And goes on to say that no current methods target particular age classes, but shooting is biased that way.



Now this 2001 study was available to McLeod, Saunders & co in 2007 when they wrote their report. I wonder how it slipped their mind?

2> May also allow the remaining animals survival and breeding to be enhanced

The problem is the the word MAY.
In a scientific journal I think it is reasonable to take the authors meaning to be "it is possible"

That is to say the Author does not KNOW, the Author can not prove, the Author just thinks is might be the case.

[MAY can mean "a possibility" a "permission" or "wish or hope" http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/may]


3> May also allow immigration rates to increase & dispersal rates to decrease

That is to say the Author does not KNOW, the Author can not prove, the Author just thinks is might be the case
that shooting allows immigration rates to increase and dispersal to decrease.

Now looking at the sort of results you get from a FOX DRIVE

I think when you see results like those on the left, it is reasonable to agree with the idea that removing this many foxes from the environment must have an impact on the survival rates of the foxes that are left. It is seems reasonable to think that other foxes in the area have no pressure to disperse & that foxes from other areas will be tempted to move into the area.

What is also reasonable to conclude that there has been a significant reduction in amount of predation by foxes on the wildlife. That being the case, it should improve survival rates of the animals that are food for the predators until the Fox population returns to its previous level

Therefore you would need to do regular culls like this fox drive to keep numbers down.

And indeed the paper on page 10 under 1.7 Conclusions from this study states:

"Group shooting programs can be just as successful as group baiting programs. The key to success involves incorporating as large an area as possible and conducting regular (twice a year) control programs to maximise the effectiveness."

It is true that this is not ad-hoc hunting.

However,  it is difficult to see how ad-hoc hunting between the twice yearly Group Shooting Programs/twice yearly baiting programs can be detrimental to the pest control effort?

The advice from DPI VIC:
 "Effective fox management utilises all the available control measures that are feasible on your property."

http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/agriculture/pests-diseases-and-weeds/pest-animals/invasive-animal-management/established-invasive-animals/integrated-fox-control-for-rural-and-natural-landscapes

Indeed the NSW report says (in its conclusions)

"1080 ground baiting is generally more cost effective than shooting in terms of the cost per fox killed. Although shooting by both recreational and professional shooters, can be a successful alternative in areas where foxes will not succumb to baiting, 1080 baiting is not feasible, or is not the preferred option "
(again note if you are paying professional shooters baiting may be cheaper, but not if using volunteers & BAITING DOES NOT ALWAYS WORK!!!)


If you only read this far, I think you can see that the research is not the "PROOF"  the Greens say it says.

Co-ordinated culling by volunteers does work & is as effective as baiting.

Ad-Hoc Hunting is not proven to "increase feral numbers"

Pest control requires us to use EVERY TOOL AVAILABLE. Volunteers doing ad hoc hunting = another opportunty for the Feral to come in contact with a control tool. The more encounters the more likely Mr Fox, Pig, Goat, Dog, Rabbit is to be controlled.






Since your still reading:

THIS STUDY HAD ANOTHER ISSUE
The assessment of shooting as a tool for control set out in this document is based on 40 responses to a survey + some face to face interviews responses

40 people out of Nearly 300,000 licenced shooters who had "Hunting/Primary Producer" on their licence.
The response rate was heavily biased to recreational hunters.

"40 fox shooters (3 farmer / rural occupiers, 36 recreational and 4 professionals), documenting 169 separate forays from the period of March to August 2006. This was an extremely poor response considering the number of fox shooters in NSW is estimated to be in the thousands."

"Because of the poor response, a short face to face interview was conducted with ten fox shooters from the Orange area who did not respond to fox questionnaire."

The researchers then say:
"Because of the low number of responses, particularlyfrom the primary producers themselves, the data collected from the survey can not be used to assess any trends in foxshooting across agricultural lands in NSW."

then go on to draw conclusions anyway.



Some further reading:
CASE STUDY: Coordinated fox shooting program
 http://www.feral.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/PSCS2_fox_SthCstNSW.pdf

EVALUATION OF THE 2002/03 VICTORIAN FOX BOUNTY TRIAL
http://redcard.net.au/doc/Fox_Bounty_Report_Vic_2003.pdf

They conclude that it is a failure for various reasons. Thats for another post.

Never the less it has some excellent background information
A good summary of resilience to control
Restates the age bias of shooting
Talks about the habitat restrictions of shooting
Covers the Phillip Island test of Shooting and the sole method of control.

I can not let the "IT FAILED" go with out comment:

From the Report:

First:
Then they make this statement:
Bounties are paid on all animals of the target species taken. This results in large numbers of younger, inexperienced animals being removed, while more elusive, older animals escape. Older animals are the most likely to breed successfully and hence they are important targets for control

Remember this is despite the CSIRO Paper I mentioned earlier & the DPI Paper provides NO REFERENCE for their claim. (so I smell a bias!)

ALSO:
Bounty schemes have tended to focus on reducing pest population size as opposed to attempting to
minimise the damage caused by the pest population. Their objective is to kill as many pests as possible rather than considering alternative management options to reduce the level of damage. This approach also means there are no set objectives or targets such as reducing populations by a certain proportion. Without defined objectives, no measurement of success can be made.

As there is no accurate method available to measure fox abundance there is a clear deficiency in
our ability to measure the success of fox control. There is a clear need to develop techniques to
permit fox abundance to be measured (page 27)

So
- they measured how many foxes where removed by bounty claims.
- they estimated how many foxes there were per sq km
- they concluded not enough foxes were taken by shooting to impact the "estimated" density of foxes

The conclude it failed.

At no point do they asses this program as an adjunct to the strategic baiting and other control measures.

This is what we see time and time again. "SHOOTING ALONE DOES NOT WORK" like I said last time. NO SHIT!