letters from Susan Hayes
Just thought I'd send you a copy of my latest letter to AWAC South Australia to let you know what I'm up to. Great news that NSW has prohibited the steel jaw traps and I hope that the good luck spreads across to the other states. I am sure it will only be a matter of time and constructive pressure before SA will ban the steel jaw traps too, although there is another dark cloud looming on the horizon. I am very concerned that the number of poisoned meats laid each year and sometimes twice a year will increase many fold from the 90,000 they lay along the Sth Australia section of the Dog Fence alone. I have seen this coming ever since I've been onto the case and have complained about the baits as much as the traps. Unfortunately the battle against the baits will be even more difficult than the one against the traps, I think. They seem to think that 1080 is a humane poison! I don't believe that anything that renders an animal to a state of hysterical convulsions until if fits itself to death up to six days later, is humane in any shape or form.
Of course, all of this carnage is going on out in the bush, so "out of sight, out of mind" is the theory.
I'm sure the compromise on the abolition of the steel jaw trap will be the introduction of the victor Soft Catch Trap. This is a less cumbersome trap than the steel jaw trap and has rubber pads over its jaws to theoretically reduce injuries to the victim.
I will oppose any use of any leg hold trap for two reasons -
As well as those two reasons, there is also the issue of the indiscriminacy which is part and parcel of the use of any leg hold trap. A wild animal needs to be in perfect health to survive in the bush, and even if a non-target species is trapped and then found in time, and released, it would still be in serious trouble, particularly if the victim was a bird, lizard or echidna for example. Even with the rubber pad on the jaws, there could still be enough of an impact to break the bones of those smaller species.
The Dog Fence Board has stated that there are not enough funds to be conducting boundary runs any more than the mandatory fortnightly run, therefore the traps are only checked once a fortnight. Even if there was some talk of being able to check the soft catch traps every day I would still oppose it, because, I think that if they are able to check the gates and fences etc every day, then they would not have any more reason (or at least what they call a reason) to run the leg hold traps.
The main reason that the Dog Fence Board use the traps (they say) is because the gates get left open. Humane exclusion is the only way of the future. No one has the right to kill innocent animals for no reason, let alone when the method of killing is as abhorrent as it is with the use of the leg hold traps and poisoned meat baits. Our poor dingoes and other native animals, that suffer at the hands of supposedly intelligent people, how they must wonder ...'
Susan Hayes 12 March 1996 Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources Animal Welfare Advisory Committee GPO Box 1047 Adelaide 500l
Thank you for your letter of 20th October, 1995. It was suggested in your last letter that I try to establish a direct line of communication with the Dog Fence Board.
I have written to both the Dog Fence Board and the Animal and Plant Control commission on several occasions, and have been given a variety of their reasons why the traps and baits will continue to be used. I do not believe that either random vandalism, fickle seasons, or lack of staff etc. justifies ongoing deliberate and indiscriminate acts of extreme cruelty.
I do not understand how any animal, whether it be a dingo or not, can be guilty of killing or maiming any stock, when it is trapped or baited outside of the Dog Fence. These animals are being lured by all means possible toward the Dog Fence and then intentionally and tortuously killed because of it, even though they have not even transgressed into stock zones.
If the problem of dingo predation is as great as what is claimed by stockowners, and comes from within an industry so authoritative that it can stand apart from the laws applicable to every one else in the matters of animal welfare, then surely that same power would generate enough funds to protect itself humanely and adequately.
Just because these animals are not individually owned and watched over in the usual caring and protective manner of an owner, they are able to be condemned to a gruesome death simply by being curious enough to follow a man-made and strongly scented trail.
Wild animals need to be given the same degree of humane treatment as is given to domestic animals. If a dingo or dog is caught in the act of maiming or killing stock, then even at this point, that particular animal should be accurately shot and killed quickly.
If the same law were to apply in principle toward domestic breeds of dog, being that for every dog that has ever killed or mauled any domestic stock, means that all the other innocent dogs of that same breed should be lured to their death, just so that it can (theoretically) not happen again. Of course, the law does not allow such broad scale killing amongst our domestic breeds, so why is it made mandatory toward a wild species?
I would like to refer back to your letter of 20th Oct, 1995, in answer to my questions:- 2. "At this stage the only recommendations that AWAC has made relating to traps is to agree that strychnine soaked rags should be wrapped around traps in an attempt to ensure that death occurs rapidly."
I do not understand how strychnine can somehow make death in a trap less cruel when -
No-one wants to see stock pulled down by dingoes, or any other breed of canid, but an act of predation by an animal that knows no different, cannot be made morally justified by deliberately using acts of extreme cruelty on other innocent animals. Two wrongs do not make right.
The theory of a dingo free buffer zone along the Dog Fence is a facade of false impression, because whether it be occupied by resident dingoes maintaining their own territory adjoining the Dog Fence, or those dingoes that are lured into undefended territory by the trap sites, baits and dragged carcasses, there will always be dingoes on the 'outside' country.
Exclusion from stock zones by humane methods only, is a moral obligation to the welfare of our animals outside the dog fence which deserve the same degree of protection from cruelty as do our animals on the "inside" country.
How can anyone believe that one species of animal can feel less pain than another species, when all of those animals have central nervous systems designed to be repulsed from painful stimuli and the untold misery and suffering that can follow as a consequence.
Vandalism will always be a problem associated with the Dog Fence, as it is with any equipment left unguarded in an isolated area. Boundary runs need to be made much more frequently than one a fortnight.
Gates that are continually left open, need to be replaced by grids, and ideally, fitted with ultra-sonic dog deterrent devices.
Community Service work gangs could be utilised to assist in the necessary mending and maintenance of the Dog Fence.
Educational posters could be placed anywhere that would help to make the public more aware of the needs of the Dog Fence; eg NPWS offices, Tourist Centres, CES offices, DSS offices, Police Station foyers, Tourist stops, Council foyers etc. I have enclosed an idea for the design of such a poster for the committee's interest. I would be happy to work on any other suggestions towards an educational poster design, if it is considered of use to the cause.
The signs on each of the Dog Fence gates could be replaced with a more hospitable request to shut the gate, rather than the skull and crossbones and threatening words which are currently used; and also, that a small design of the Aboriginal flag and 'please shut the gate' written in the local dialect, might bring about a sense of recognition to the whole scene and therefore, hopefully, a sense of responsibility as well. I know of gates in the west coast area being left propped open deliberately, in retaliation to pet domestic dog dying after picking up 1080 meat baits left along the Dog Fence.
I am concerned that, out of the eight members of the AWAC, only three members are representing the concerns of animal welfare, and that members with vested interests in the departments involved would surely have difficulty in deciding where their moral standings lay from within the AWAC.
I am also concerned that, out of those members of AWAC, how many have even actually seen a dog trap, or the horror of an animal's demise as it thrashes itself to a slow death while caught in a leg hold trap, and how many have seen the convulsive and hysterical actions of an animal that has taken down a poisoned meat bait?
I would like all AWAC members to suffer those scenes first hand, so that they may fully realise the shocking cruelty involved, before they become eligible to vote on the issues that arise from it.
I would like to ask the AWAC the following questions:-
I would like to thank the AWAC for their time and effort in discussing my letter, and I look forward to your response very soon.
Yours sincerely,
Susan Hayes