DAINTREE RAINFOREST CAMERA TRAPS – 2024
As a part of its long-term Daintree Rainforest Camera Trap Project, 2024 accrued 742-cassowary sightings, 460-dingoes and 4,084-feral-pigs. In terms of cumulative monthly averages, cassowary numbers decreased by 8% to 100 per-month, dingo numbers remained the same at 40 per-month and feral-pigs increased by 24% to 193 sightings per month. In comparison with 2023, cassowary numbers plummeted by 56%, dingo sightings also dropped by 54% and feral-pig numbers grew by 14%.
Comparative population sightings across 2024:
Overlay of cassowary sightings between 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 & 2024:
Overlay of dingo sightings between 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 & 2024:
Overlay of feral-pig sightings between 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 & 2024:
Intergovernmental policy requires that measures adopted should be cost-effective and not be disproportionate to the significance of the environmental problems being addressed. On 23rd November 2021, when the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions (CISS) released Fighting plagues and predators: Australia’s path to a pest and weed-free future, it was reported that: “Urgent, decisive, coordinated action is crucial to stopping the spread of invasive species and to protect our extraordinary, irreplaceable native animals and plants, and Australia has a great track record in this space”. However, the article later admits, that Australia has the highest rate of vertebrate mammal extinctions in the world. How, in all honesty, can Australia’s great track record protecting its extraordinary, irreplaceable native plants and animals be reconciled with the world’s highest rate of mammal extinction?
Of the seventy-three species of introduced vertebrate pest roaming our continent, three have been ranked as the worst of a bad bunch; with rabbits, pigs & cats (plus an endemic plant pathogen known as Phytophthora cinnamomi) endangering more than 800 threatened species.
Feral-pigs, have been identified within the National Threat Abatement Plan for predation, habitat degradation, competition, and disease transmission, as known or perceived threats to the Endangered Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius johnsonii), as well as adversely affecting 148 species of threatened flora and fauna and eight threatened ecological communities.
The Southern Cassowary (Casuarius casuarius johnsonii), whose habitat supports at least 106 plant and 37 animal species identified as Threatened, under State and Australian Government legislation, is vulnerable to feral-pigs. With a more calamitous potential for consequential cascading extinctions, cassowary protection is more critically important than any other threatened species, as they are the only animal capable of distributing the seeds of more than 70 species of plant whose fruit is either too large or toxic for any other vector. Feral-pigs usurp cassowaries from habitat and resources, displace male cassowaries from their nests to devour their eggs and predate upon juvenile cassowaries. Feral-pigs also attract recreational pig-hunters who typically release large aggressive dogs (without tenure recognition capabilities) and usually four at a time.
The National Feral Pig Action Plan (2021-2031) endorsed by Australia’s National Biosecurity Committee in October 2021, aims to actively suppress or eradicate Australian feral pig populations to reduce their impacts on environmental, agricultural, cultural and social assets, via a landscape-scale, nil tenure approach, described as an approach where a range of control methods are applied across all tenures by all stakeholders at a regional or ‘landscape’ (rather than ‘property’) level in a cooperative and coordinated manner.
Approaching the halfway mark of the Plan’s 10-year duration, there has been no recognisable evidence of a ‘nil-tenure’ approach in the Daintree Rainforest. Indeed, the heavy formality of protective mechanisms appears only to provide unintended sanctuary to feral-pigs, along with all their catastrophic environmental and cultural degradations, across the entirety of its all-inclusive World Heritage and Endangered Ecosystem Community-listed area. Meanwhile, dingoes, which I’m happy to report have held their representative numbers steadily over the past five-years, not only kill feral-pigs, they also displace them through fear of predation. However, dingoes are only protected as ‘native wildlife’ within Protected Areas, but outside these boundaries are classified as ‘Wild Dogs‘ and category 3, 4, 5 and 6 Restricted Invasive Animals under the Biosecurity Act 2014, whereupon they must not be moved, kept, fed, given away, sold or released into the environment.
The Threatened Species Action Plan has committed to improving the condition of 20 priority places, including the Eastern Forests of Far North Queensland, focussing on habitat restoration and managing invasive feral pigs. However, the Plan has not included the Southern Cassowary in the 22 bird species selected for priority restoration, despite its Endangered Species status under the EPBC Act; despite playing a crucial role in the environment as a keystone species, despite its uniqueness and despite being particularly valued by the community, as a well-known part of local or broader community identity, culturally significant to Indigenous and other local people and invaluable to tourism and its requisite conservation economy.
Are we to infer that Cassowary recovery has been deemed to have too high an unlikelihood of success, that no action could possibly be effective in protecting the species now and into the future or that there are insufficient resources available to have any chance of success?
For cassowaries unrivalled ecological importance, the only variable that offers any scope for improvement in carrying capacity, is via the eviction of invasive competition from feral-pigs. Extirpating such clever, mobile and fecund pests, must acknowledge that ‘nil-tenure’ cannot be compromised and there can be no tenure exclusions whatsoever. ‘Protected Areas’ need to be apportioned as a measurable part of the pest problem and the country’s love of its Protected Areas, whilst worthy of encouragement, was never intended to provide invasive pests with sanctuary.
Daintree Rainforest Foundation Ltd has been registered by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission and successfully entered onto the Register of Environmental Organisations. Donations made to the Daintree Rainforest Fund support Daintree Rainforest community custodianship and are eligible for a tax deduction under the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997. These Daintree Camera Trap Reports are also made possible by the support of the Foundation’s membership, which is open for application via this link.
