Authors: T. E. Cox , M. Leane, R. Baker, J. Sparkes and R. Matthews
Summary: Invasive animals continue to have a significant impact on the Australian landscape despite continual control efforts. Aerial shooting from helicopters is the most common tool used to control these animals at the landscape scale. However, most aerial shooting programs are generally applied ad hoc, prioritise effort based on assumed spatial distribution and are based primarily on visual sightings of the target species. The systematic-with-thermal search approach can result in rapid local removal of pigs when it follows a habitat-informed approach. The systematic approach resulted in detections of target animals in areas the crew did not expect to find them. Targeting multiple species in a program appears to reduce program effectiveness.
The results demonstrated that following a habitat-informed aerial shooting program with a systematic-with-thermal program can result in a rapid removal of >95% of feral pigs. For habitat-informed programs the addition of a thermographer can improve program outcomes. Multi-species aerial shooting programs may result in decreased effectiveness overall, although further research on the functional response in multi-species programs is required before any conclusions can be drawn.