Stop feral pigs wrecking Tasmania forever

Feral pigs are on the brink of causing an environmental catastrophe in Tasmania. About 150 roaming pigs are already wreaking havoc in northwest Tasmania but the government is not acting. With a breeding rate of 86% per year, if we don’t get a handle on them now this population could explode to 30,000 in just a decade. Tasmania will then have a feral pig problem forever.

Feral pigs are on the brink of causing an environmental catastrophe in Tasmania. About 150 roaming pigs are already wreaking havoc in northwest Tasmania but the government is not acting. With a breeding rate of 86% per year, if we don’t get a handle on them now this population could explode to 30,000 in just a decade. Tasmania will then have a feral pig problem forever.

How To Help  |  Take Action

Feral pigs are an environmental and economic disaster on mainland Australia and without urgent action they could explode across Tasmania.

Potentially 150 farmed-turned-feral pigs are wreaking havoc right now in the bushlands around Gunns Plain and Waratah in northwest Tasmania. There are unconfirmed reports of some roaming pigs near Hobart too.

With a breeding rate of 86% per year, if the Tasmanian government doesn’t act fast 150 pigs could explode to 30,000 in just a decade. Once established in these numbers, getting rid of them is almost impossible. Tasmania will never be the same.

Send a message to the Tasmanian Premier, Minister for Primary Industries and the Minister for Parks and Environment today to say act now before it is too late!

The window of opportunity to stop feral pigs taking over Tasmania is closing fast.

Tasmania is fortunate to currently have no major feral pig populations outside of Flinders Island. This could change rapidly if these uncontained pigs remain uncontrolled.

Feral pigs are a nightmare for people, pets, farms and nature. They threaten 148 species nationwide and cost farmers on the mainland over $100 million every year.

They trample and uproot native plants, pollute and erode rivers, trash crops, kill and eat native animals and spread weeds and diseases.

It is not too late to prevent feral pigs from spreading across Tasmania. But it could be soon.

Feral pigs have a high breeding rate. In good conditions, their population can increase 86% a year. This means 150 pigs could become over 2000 in five years and over 30,000 in another five years.

Once feral pigs are established, eradication is rarely possible and control will be an ongoing cost to Tasmanian taxpayers forever.

At the faintest hint of foxes, the Tasmanian government spent $50 million on an important fox eradication program. Feral pigs should warrant a similar level of concern.

Feral pigs are one of the most destructive invasive species on mainland Australia. We cannot let them wreck Tasmania too.

Together we must call on the Premier, Primary Industry and Environment Ministers to prioritise dealing with these roaming populations of pigs before it’s too late.

We need urgent eradication of these isolated populations and legislative improvements to prevent farmed pigs from going feral in future.

Writing an email to the Premier, Primary Industry and Environment Ministers is a powerful action you can take to prevent the damaging impacts of feral pigs.

Feral pigs are an environmental and economic disaster on mainland Australia and without urgent action they could explode across Tasmania.

Potentially 150 farmed-turned-feral pigs are wreaking havoc right now in the bushlands around Gunns Plain and Waratah in northwest Tasmania. There are unconfirmed reports of some roaming pigs near Hobart too.

With a breeding rate of 86% per year, if the Tasmanian government doesn’t act fast 150 pigs could explode to 30,000 in just a decade. Once established in these numbers, getting rid of them is almost impossible. Tasmania will never be the same.

Send a message to the Tasmanian Premier, Minister for Primary Industries and the Minister for Parks and Environment today to say act now before it is too late!

Write an email to the Premier, Primary Industry and Environment Ministers and help us stop feral pigs from taking over Tasmania.

Your gift is a lifeline for nature.

Our protected areas are being trashed, trampled, choked and polluted by an onslaught of invaders. Invasive species are already the overwhelming driver of our animal extinction rate, and are expected to cause 75 of the next 100 extinctions.

But you can help to turn this around and create a wildlife revival in Australia. 

From numbats to night parrots, a tax-deductible donation today can help defend our wildlife against the threat of invasive weeds, predators, and diseases.

As the only national advocacy environment group dedicated to stopping this mega threat, your gift will make a big difference.

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Accordion Content

A silent crisis is unfolding across Australia. Every year, billions of native animals are hunted and killed by cats and foxes. Fire ants continue to spread and threaten human health. And the deadly strain of bird flu looms on the horizon. Your donation today will be used to put the invasive species threat in the media, make invasive species a government priority, ensure governments take rapid action to protect nature and our remarkable native wildlife from invasives-led extinction, death and destruction.

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    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]


    Dear Project Team,

    [YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

    I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

    The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

    The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

    This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

    Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

    Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

    Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

    I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

    Kind regards,
    [Your name]
    [Your email address]
    [Your postcode]