QUEENSLAND melon farmers have fallen victim to a pig plague during the recent growing season, with some seeing huge numbers of the pests converge on their crops for the first time since the drought.
Grower Murray Sturgess had pigs in his crop the week before the Chinchilla Melon Festival last month causing a significant amount of damage to the fruit he'd grown especially for the melon skiing events.
Mr Sturgess said it was a race to get the melons out once they'd realised the pigs were getting into the crop, but they had still managed to bust a lot of the fruit.
"We planted melons especially for the skiing and we had to get in and pick them before they wrecked the whole lot, but they found them in the end and they left the seedless and went for the long, seeded melons," he said.
"The ones they don't break, they tip over sideways and tear the vine about, buggering them anyway, so they do a lot of damage.
"There has been between 30 and 40 coming in, and we've trapped a few and we've shot a few, but they just keep coming.
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"We had a lot of crows early doing a lot of damage and we thought that was bad, but the pigs in a couple of nights did more damage than crows ever looked like they were going to do.
"They have been a major problem and it looks like they're still coming in, but we're not far off finishing now."
Mr Sturgess said they hadn't had much pig action for a number of years, but with the drier conditions setting in over summer, they were now looking to the melons for a feed.
"They're obviously getting hungry as it dries off and they come in a bit harder, and they just bloody hardly move on," he said.
"They head off to the grain country and then they're dropping into a desert on the way home basically.
"We've never really had much trouble before, a little bit, but not not like this where you get that many pigs walking across and they bust every melon.
"We're on Charley's Creek and they tend to follow the creek, so they go up to the O'Leary's and they follow back and forth to the creek, wreaking a bit of havoc wherever they can."
Fellow grower Darryl O'Leary said his son Terry had also seen more pigs around their properties in recent months, with the lack of rain and other feed drawing them out again.
"We've been pretty good for a while, and we always get pigs and but not the numbers that people have been seeing this year," he said.
"There was a bloke around here the other day and he shot 32 of them.
"The drought knocked them back a bit but they just seem to be coming back here over the last three or four months, you're definitely seeing more pig tracks.
"Once they get a taste for it, you've got to do a big scare to pull them up."
Mr Sturgess said it might be time to look into another cull, particularly if the rest of the year was shaping up to be as dry as the summer months.
"In the past, I've always had pig dogs and they used to move them on a bit, but if you don't have dogs, you can shoot all you like, they just don't care, they just keep coming back," he said.
"Years ago they had am aerial shoot here and the aerial guy said he shot 800 out of the area and we really haven't had a lot of trouble, since but obviously we're due for another aerial shoot I'd say."
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