THE wild dog onslaught will continue unless more funding is directed to the control of wild dogs in reserves and crown land, according to Agriculture and Food Department (DAFWA) regional biosecurity manager Barry Davies.
He said the lack of funds given to pest management on unallocated crown land (UCL) was a huge concern.
"DEC roughly gets $350,000 across 88 million hectares, and that allocation isn't just for live dogs, it's across all pest management," he said.
"DAFWA doesn't do any land management work, so it's the Department of Environment and Conservation's responsibility but they don't have dollars to do much pest management.
"From Mt Marshall down to Ravensthorpe, you've got 600km of crown land buffering agriculture."
Mr Davies said it was a national problem, and every state he had talked to had the same issues with funding to manage pests on crown land.
Part of the wild dog problem is its relatively recent emergence on the scene, when funding for some pest control plans is based over a multiple year timeline.
Of the statewide expenditure on wild dogs since 1996, half of the Agricultural Protection Board and DAFWA money went to pastoral areas.
Mr Davies said while there were strong industry groups in Esperance and the eastern Wheatbelt, with which DAFWA matches funding dollar for dollar, more funding is still needed to take control of the wild dog problem.
Despite Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) placing wild dogs high on its priority list, they have only funded passive eradication programs.
"The only thing AWI is funding as far as dogs go at the moment is the bait program," Mr Davies said.
He said the department was putting together a plan of attack to take back to Agriculture and Food Minister Terry Redman to see what could be done about wild dog numbers.
In July to October last year, the department held six to seven farmer workshops with a dogger who instructed farmers on how to track wild dog activity in the northern agricultural regions.
Mr Davies said the wild dog problem was widespread in the Murchison and areas east of Esperance with a lot of concern present about farmland adjoining inland reserves.
"In the Murchison on Kalarnie station, three years ago those guys had no dogs, they put a dogger on in July last year, so far they've got 90-100 dogs since then," he said.
"Simon Broad, president of the Murchison shire, shot 13 dogs on Milly Milly station last week alone and they had none three years ago."
"We want to find out if those dogs are building up locally or if they're travelling a long way."
Crucial to the tracking of wild dogs is the WA Wild Dog DNA project, with the results from the 2300 samples collected from across WA expected in mid 2010.
The WA Wild Dog DNA project aimed at tracking the mobility of wild dogs, and finding out if the dogs in question were dingoes or crossbreed dogs.
Mr Davies said most of the wild dogs the doggers had DNA-tested in WA were dingoes.
"In WA 60pc of the dogs tested for DNA had more than 75pc Dingo DNA, while 40pc were classed as wild dogs," he said.
In the northern territory 85pc of the dogs tagged were dingoes, a complete contrast to NSW which had a dingo population of only 4pc and Victoria with 5pc of all dogs tagged identified as dingoes.
In Queensland 32pc of dogs tested were dingoes, while in SA, 57pc were more than 75pc dingo.
Young wild dogs can cover over 150km in two weeks just to find new territory, according to research from the project.
Mr Davies said the attacks weren't just about the financial costs of losing sheep for producers, but the emotional costs of having lots of sheep killed in a night, then having to destroy another several that have been mauled.
Instead of waiting for more government funding to eradicate more wild dogs however, producers are taking the defence of their flocks into their own hands.
Mr Davies said there were 12 different types of guardian dog available to protect flocks and some were already being used by WA producers under threat from feral pests.
He's seen first hand the results of Maremma guardian dogs which are about the size of a sheep and very protective.
He gave one example of an eastern states' farmer who bought 20 to guard his 40,000 hectare property on which he ran sheep, cattle and used traditional wild dog management.
"His lambing losses have gone from 10pc to 15pc to the industry average of about 3pc for that area, there's no foxes left, the feral pigs are gone, he hardly ever sees any cats and his kangaroo population has gone from 5000 to around 500," he said.
"He's increased his grazing by 4000 DSE."
A best-practice manual using guardian dogs to guard sheep will be finished in April.
Mr Davies said while alpacas did well against foxes, they were no match for wild dogs.
He said that on a broader scope in WA, work is being done on the state barrier fence from Kellerberrin to Ravensthorpe to strengthen pest proofing WA farm land.
On a national level, the National Wild dog Advisory group had a discussion with Federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke who allocated some funding in from Caring for our Country under the banner of pest management.
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