Using advanced live vision from a thermal imaging drone, a thermal scope on his rifle and a modified electric golf cart to track and winch away the carcasses, the feral pigs in Darren Pratt's sights haven't got a chance.
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Spreading disease to livestock, trampling crops for feed, wrecking infrastructure and causing massive financial damage to growers and graziers, there's no doubt Mr Pratt and his thermal imaging drone business are given a very warm welcome by landholders wanting to rid their property of feral pests, including foxes, wild dogs and pigs.
Three years ago Bundaberg Feral Pest Control was founded by the 54-year-old who grew up on a property at Mungar where he learned to shoot.
Mr Pratt who said since he launched the business it had been growing almost as fast as the state's feral pig population.
"High demand from farmers and graziers turned it into a proper business," he said.
"One large property we took 118 pigs off in one month and shot 270 overall over five months, and one night at another property we spotted up to 150 pigs.
"Another cattle farmer told me he contacted us as while he knew he had a lot of feral pigs on his property, when he found one in the house paddock and he's got children, it really worried him.
"Because of so much rain there is a lot of feed out there the pig population is massive."
He said graziers and growers appreciated the thermal imaging drone allowed a more efficient way to remove the pests.
Another reason to shoot the feral pigs is they can often transmit high risk diseases such as brucellosis, leptospirosis and Q fever.
"Basically if you see wild pigs during the day you have a significant problem," he said.
"They are usually nocturnal so daytime sightings mean a big population."
He said it was important to consider the benefits of new technology when it appeared.
"When an exceptionally advanced drone with a highly developed heat sensor capacity was released in Australia our business really took off," he said.
"Since then we have used the drone's imaging capacity to help locate to help dispatch feral pigs from cattle properties, farms with fruit such as macadamia and avocados and crops including sugarcane."
Mr Pratt said the drone which is flown by his fully licensed and qualified pilots means he can more quickly track and dispatch pests which can range from a 146kg beast destroying sprinklers or pipes to wild dogs attacking newborn calves and hares which can quickly wipe out a sweet potato crop.
"Targeting feral pigs is around 80 per cent of the business," he said.
"We usually work from 7pm to 4am, I handle the dispatching with a custom built rifle with all thermal scopes and a thermal monocular while a drone pilot manages the vision."
Mr Pratt said everyone on his team was a seasoned professional and held all the appropriate qualifications, licenses and insurances.
"Everyone including myself has all the Civil Aviation Safety Authority permits and we follow all the rules such as keeping our drones under 400ft or 120m," he said.
"We use a DJI Mavic 3 Enterprise drone which came out about 18 months ago and I was the first in Queensland to adopt it for this use.
"The vision goes to a linked 47 inch monitor screen which allows us to determinate if the animals we see via the drone are a pig, fox, or a wild dog or if they are a protected species."
Mr Pratt said he felt the return on the technology investment had "definitely" helped his business grow.
"At this stage the drone was around $9000, accessories around $5000 and licencing around $6000 but it was good investment when you consider the massive amount of damage feral animals can do on properties."
Mr Pratt said the cost of his pest control was considered by his many satisfied clients to be "a drop in the bucket" compared with the big financial losses growers and graziers can incur when feral pests moved onto their property and damaged infrastructure as well attacking as young livestock.
"One grower told me it would cost him around $150,000 annually in lost wages as workers had to undertake constant repairs to infrastructure as well as the agribusinesses sustaining constant damage to their fruit and crops", he said.
"A six month contract can be one shoot per week, fortnight, every 21 days or a month and this very affordable or we can do a cost per pig shot.
"All clients also get a free trap we bait which we position after using live-time imaging to work out where they gather."
Modifying an electric golf cart to use long-life lithium batteries to extend the range to 70km has allowed Mr Pratt to be able to get close to a mob of pigs without disturbing them.
He said its front winch does the heavy lifting to transport carcasses to a pit previously dug by the landholder.
"We drop them in the pit and then the landholder will cover them with soil," he said.
"All they do is dig the pit and fill it in."
Everyone needs a hobby and Mr Pratt said his is keeping honeybees.
"I like being an apiarist and we have been 250 and 300 hives at any one time and harvest up to 15 tonnes of honey a year," he said.
"When King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, came to Bundaberg he used our honey in his tea, loved it and asked for some to take home with him."
Know more about this issue? Contact Alison Paterson on 0437 861 082.
