Australian Hunter

Curiosity   killed the feral cat

As recreational hunters, my son Rob and I focus heavily on wild dogs. Our success on properties in the Brisbane Valley area of South East Queensland has led to requests for help from other property owners who have felt the pain and experienced the grief of losing valued breeding stock and calves to these cruel canines.

As many fellow hunters will be aware, wild dogs are difficult to find and must always be taken with the first clean shot because, apart from the ethical implications, you are unlikely to gain a second shot at the same dog, ever.

We are always keen to learn more, especially about the technology that may help us to do better, and at the past SSAA SHOT Expo in Brisbane, we were talking to the experts. The team from Wolf Eyes was very knowledgeable about light spectrums and colors that a dog cannot see, which is handy to know when choosing spotlights and torches. That’s a science of its own and a topic for another story. We spoke to several other companies about thermal vision and had the chance to hold the latest to our eye. We can’t wait for prices to come down a bit there.

Over the past few years, through the use of trail cameras that email real-timethey are competing for the same food. In the Brisbane Valley, cattle, calves and other animals are frequently cut down by cunning packs of wild dogs using terrible means to kill them. They then return for weeks, eating everything but a few large scattered bones and a bit of well-chewed hide. Our trail cameras have also helped to learn the timing of the return visits to carcasses by dogs and while not always consistent information, it has proved fatal for wild dogs on more than one occasion.

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