Bounty hunters battling it out to kill the most feral pests is being floated as a potential way to deal with wild animals decimating Australian wildlife.
After recent success with bounties in Victoria, the NSW government is said to be receptive to a proposal for bounties worth $2 million across pigs, foxes, feral cats and wild dogs in the upcoming budget cycle.
Victoria has run a fox bounty program since 2011 and will increase its per-scalp price from $10 to $14 for the upcoming season, with more than 82,000 foxes killed in 2022.
NSW Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party leader Robert Borsak pressed for his state to reintroduce bounties, even backing novel approaches like Florida's famed Python Challenge.
The annual 10-day competition, which has even spawned a TV comedy, draws hundreds of people to the Florida Everglades to exterminate invasive Burmese pythons.
Mr Borsak said the state government was receptive to adding bounties to its arsenal for tackling invasive species.
Nearly $1 billion is being spent on prevention and protection against biosecurity threats in NSW including with Australia's first feral pig coordinator and aerial shooting of feral horses in national parks.
“What we've seen is governments spending tens of millions of dollars ... on big solutions, costing $2000 an hour to run a helicopter and all that sort of stuff, but it's just not good value for money,” Mr Borsak told AAP.
“Bureaucrats keep these programs going and exclude the people who do most of the on-the-ground culling, and that's conservation hunters who get out there and do it because they want to be in the bush to get things done."
But bounty hunting was like "jailing the occasional dealer" to deal with a drug epidemic, the Invasive Species Council said.
At least three to four million pigs would need to be killed each year to achieve genuine population control, it said.
"A $10 per head bounty on pigs for $1 million, maybe there's 100,000 pigs killed out of a population around five million that's breeding at about 85 per cent per year," the council's advocacy director Jack Gough told AAP.
“Having a few yahoos running around achieves precisely nothing in terms of effective, thorough animal control."
Animal Justice Party MP Emma Hurst said the government should focus on investment in humane alternatives like immunocontraceptive darting and baiting.
“Not only (are bounties) going to lead to animal cruelty for a small group of people who get some sort of sick enjoyment out of killing animals, it's also entirely ineffective,” she told AAP.
The CSIRO’s most recent best practice advice on pest management said bounties "rarely work".
NSW Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty was contacted for comment.
Instead a Primary Industries and Regional Development spokesperson responded and said they constantly looked at different pest management approaches.
"While baiting has proved to be an effective method of controlling foxes in NSW, the government is open to discussions with relevant groups," they told AAP.
