Wild pigs have exploded in number across Southland, uprooting farmland, eating crops and leaving a mess farmers are struggling to keep on top of.
Dean Rabbige, an East Southland farmer in Wyndham, told 1News the pigs are getting into food producers' pastures and have taken an area of his farm out of production.
"The eradication of these pests is getting beyond the farmers' control now," he said.
"If we're going to get close to achieving the Government's ambitious task of being pest-free by 2050, then we need to work a lot more collaboratively," he said.
Rabbige is calling on the government for more funding.
Another sheep and beef farmer in the Hokonui Hills near Gore has also shared her frustration.
"We surveyed our local farms and have seen anywhere between two to five hectares of damage to a paddock. It also depends on the location. Fifteen percent of our paddocks are badly damaged," Alexis Wadworth said.
Wadworth is the Chair of the Catchment Group driving the Makarewa Headwaters Revival Project.
"It's a farmer-led initiative to help understand and communicate how fast-growing this issue is. We have a core group in the committee leading this, but across the community, there is a real sound understanding of this issue on the farms and environment," she said.
"The control measures that we have been doing in the past are no longer keeping up with the natural increase, and that's where the real problem lies."
Current control measures include recreational hunting and trapping live pigs.
"We have been taking 170 pigs off our farm every year, and our farm is 41,200 hectares."
The Makarewa Headwaters Revival Project is being funded by Thriving Southland and has support from both Hokonui Rūnanga and QEII National Trust.
"The 1st phase of the project is understanding the problem, then we move to the second phase, which is controlling the problem, and onto the third phase, reviewing the impact - but that is still several years down the track."
Wadworth said the Department of Conservation has admitted they could be doing more and notes they've been interested in working with them to better the situation.
Currently, DOC only monitors and funds wild animal work at a national level.
DOC Wild Animals Manager Mike Perry said it's not currently undertaking any control work of wild animals in the Hokonui region.
"The monitoring method used for the national scale programme is not sensitive enough to pick up fine-scale changes in pig distribution or abundance within regions," he said.
"We acknowledge wild animals are an issue in the Hokonui area and are damaging native ecosystems and nearby farmland.
"In Southland, our priority for control work is in the Fiordland National Park."
Federated Farmers would like to see a more regional approach to wild animal control funding.
“Funding needs to be nationally coordinated, but able to be applied to local initiatives,” Federated Farmers President Wayne Langford said.
“This is about supporting local solutions to local challenges, while still making sure it all joins up at a high level.”
Deer populations are also just as much of an issue as the pigs, consuming crops and pasture in large numbers.
"Every week we are hearing from farmers right across the country who are absolutely fed up with the number of wild animals that are coming onto their property causing issues," Wayne Langford said.
"To give you an idea of the scale of the problem, a deer can eat the same amount of grass in a day as two sheep. It's the same issue with other wild animals too," he said.
The Makarewa Headwaters Revival Project is holding a community event next Thursday evening, where they will present their findings on the issue and open the floor to discussion.
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