WILD dogs are threatening the goat supply of processor T&R Pastoral to the point the company will be donating a portion of future goat kills to wild dog control groups.
T&R's northern livestock buyer, Andrew Jackson, said mounting dog pressure was depleting generations of goat kids, constraining T&R's ability to expand supply.
The company has taken the extraordinary move of donating 50 cents from every goat killed through its plants at Wallangarra, Queensland, or Lobathal, South Australia, back to wild dog control groups in the region the goats originated from.
"We see breeding flocks of goats as our raw material, and we need to shore up our reserves," said Mr Jackson, who launched the program in Enngonia last Tuesday.
Over the past decade the status of goats in pastoral regions has shifted from a despised source of occasional pocket money to fully-fledged livestock enterprise for many stations.
Some pastoral region stock and station agencies have already acknowledged the threat that wild dogs pose to their businesses with donations towards dog control. T&R's initiative confirms that dogs are not just a problem for graziers.
Mr Jackson said the national kill now stands at about 23,000 goats a week, of which T&R processes 6000-12,000.
Most of the company's goats, in "skin-off" form, go to feeding the burgeoning Hispanic market in the United States. It also supplies a niche "skin-on" market in Taiwan.
These markets are ripe for expansion, Mr Jackson said, particularly the US segment, but that expansion is being threatened by plateauing supply.
"We're seeing some areas very hard-hit by dogs. People are ringing up and saying they have lost all the kids to dogs - and not just kids, but lambs, and to a lesser extent it's affecting cattle producers.
"We've got instances where I'm getting goats booked into Mitchell, and then that afternoon after the goats have been mustered, I get a call back to say the dogs have been into them and they've lost all the little ones. This will be the last from that property.
"It's becoming a huge problem. The dogs are becoming more hybridised each year, and sheep and goats don't stand a chance."
Producer efforts to clamp down on dogs is constrained by funding, which is where T&R decided to step in.
"We saw this as a win-win situation for everyone. We need to inject some money into these wild dog action groups to pay for the likes of helicopters, baits and trappers."
Funds from the initiative will be distributed directly to dog groups in NSW, and via AgForce in Queensland.
Goats are a relatively minor part of T&R's throughput, but contribute to the diversity of the company's operations.
"Out big problem is that we'd like to go forward, and we aren't," Mr Jackson said.
T&R owners Darren and Chris Thomas are "very positive" about the arrangement, he added.
An economic analysis prepared this year by the Invasive Animals Co-operative Research Centre estimated about five million sheep could be affected by wild dogs between 2012-2016, and that better dog control could save the sheep industry $47.5 million
The same estimates applied to cattle suggested that nearly 12m head could be affected by dog activity, with potential savings of $37m if better control methods were used.
Estimates of how wild dogs impact on agriculture vary widely, but a 2009 totalling-up by Lauren Hewitt for AgForce of all costs associated with wild dogs arrived at more than $69m in 2009-2010 terms for Queensland alone.
Liarne Mannix, secretary of the Ledknapper Wild Dog Control Group near Bourke, NSW, welcomed T&R's initiative as a "fabulous program".
Funding is one of the main challenges facing pastoral zone producers wanting to control wild dogs, Mrs Mannix said.
The Ledknapper group has been fortunate to receive funding from the Western Catchment Management Authority and Australian Wool Innovation, which has enabled it to blitz a wild dog problem that reached crisis proportions in 2007, when the group was formed.
At that time, dogs ran rampant. A neighbour to "Gumbooka", the station north of Bourke that Mrs Mannix runs with husband Ben, gave up on sheep after he lost the last of his lambs to dogs - despite bringing the flock in near the house.
Since 2007 more than 120 dogs have been reported trapped and destroyed by the group, with additional kills by baiting resulting in an estimated 75 per cent knockdown of dog numbers on 2007 levels.
But Mrs Mannix said that was no reason to relax.
West of Bourke, a high level of absentee land ownership has allowed dog numbers to build, as they have across the pastoral zone where landholders are less focused on dog control.
"A couple of bitches were just killed in the district, and each was carrying 10-12 pups," Mrs Mannix said. "They can breed up really quickly if you stop control work."
New sources of funding, like the T&R subsidy, will be essential to the formation of new dog control groups needed to reduce the dog pressure mounting within the dog fence, Mrs Mannix said.
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