Story by Andrew Hartwig, Landcare
Cape York Peninsula Landcare Inc., supported by Caring for our Country funding, assisted landholders of the Holroyd Plain High Value Aquatic Ecosystem to protect wetlands with the implementation of onground management actions.
Landholders fenced wetlands and riparian vegetation to exclude stock, provide off site watering points, and effectively reduce disturbance to critical aquatic ecosystems.
More than 4,000 feral animals were removed from across a broad range of land tenures and landscapes, in an aerial shooting program partnered by Cape York Weeds and Feral Animals Program (CYWAFAP). The project, completed in December 2012, achieved a large scale conservation agenda.
Partners included: Watson River, Wolverton, Srathhaven, Astrea and Glengarland Stations: the Australian Wildlife Conservancy with Picanniny Plains; the Indigenous Land Council with Merepah Station, Holroyd River and Harkness Nature Refuges, and Strathmay and Crosby Stations.
The program followed on from previous partnership control programs including CYWAFAP, Cape York Sustainable Futures and Cape York NRM. The programs took place along the west coast of Cape York, for the purpose of reducing feral pig numbers and preserving identified turtles and native wildlife specieis.
The working partnership and the continued control programs carried out by Queensland Parks and Wildlife on neighboring Oyala Thumotang National Park (formerly Rokeby Station), has been successful, as there is a noticeable reduction in brumby numbers on the Holroyd Plain.
For feral pig numbers to be reduced to a manageable level, and in turn, for the reduction of impacts on native wildlife and the improvement of water quality, a continued, sustained effort is required, well into the future.