Poison meat baits approved for use on NSW feral pigs

PHOTO: Huge feral pest pig was found on an outback property 175 kilometres north of Broken Hill in far west New South Wales. (Image: Paul Manion)

New South Wales pastoralists who are trying to reduce booming feral pig numbers on their properties could soon get some extra help.

The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority has issued a permit for 1080 poison meat baits to be used on selected rangeland properties in the state.

This is the first time the authority will permit sodium fluoroacetate or 1080, to be used for feral pig control in NSW.

Western Local Land Services will run the trial, which will begin in March this year and continue until June 2016.

NSW Minister for Primary Industries, Katrina Hodgkinson, said the trial aimed to reduce the devastating impact pest pigs have on primary production.

"It's great to have that authority given to Local Land Services by the APVMA," she said.

"Feral pigs are such dreadful creatures. The farmers will tell anybody that they destroy pastures, sensors and are particularly bad for newborn lambs.

"Local Land Services will be working with landowners to make sure they're getting the best areas covered.

"They're going to be using sensor-controlled cameras to see how effective the take up is of the baits and they'll follow up with trapping, shooting and other control methods."

Ms Hodgkinson said the baits have already been used successfully for wild dog eradication.

She said efforts would be made to ensure minimal impact on non-target species.

"We want to make sure we don't impact the environment," she said.

"When you're using meat baits you'll inevitably get some native animals in there too, but I think overall the net positive is going to be very much for us using 1080 meat baits for this feral pig trial."

Source: ABC

Is Sahara Desert several million years older than previously thought?

Sahara desert. Credit: © mrks_v / Fotolia

A team of scientists from Norway, France and China have revised the view that the Sahara desert has existed for only the last 2 to 3 million years.

The Sahara is the world's largest subtropical desert. During the last decades, numerous scientific studies have probed its geological and archeological archives seeking to reveal its history. Despite some important breakthroughs, there are still basic questions that lack satisfactory answers.

For example, how old is the Sahara desert? It is widely believed that Sahara desert first appeared during the last 2 to 3 million years, but recent discoveries such as ancient sand dunes and dust records in marine cores push the possible onset of Saharan aridity back in time by several million years. Until now, however, there have been no good explanations for such an early Sahara onset.

This study pinpoints the Tortonian stage (~7-11 million years ago) as a pivotal period for triggering North African aridity and creating the Sahara desert. Using snapshot simulations with the Norwegian Earth System Model (NorESM) model suite, the international team explored the climate evolution of North Africa through major tectonic shifts over the last 30 million years. They found that the region undergoes aridification with the shrinkage of the Tethys -- a giant ocean that was the origin of the modern Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas -- during the Tortonian.

The simulations are the first to show that the Tethys shrinkage has two main consequences for North African climate. First, it weakens the African summer monsoon circulations and dries out North Africa. Second, it enhances the sensitivity of the African summer monsoon and its associated rainfall to orbital forcing. The Tortonian stage thus marks the time when North Africa shifted from a permanently lush, vegetated landscape to a landscape experiencing arid/humid cycles on orbital time scales.

Interestingly, these major changes in North African climate and environment are coincident with an important time period for the emergence of early hominids.

Source: Uni Research