The Lighter Note

Wild west

Sometimes solutions to complex issues can be so simple.

Last year, The Note recalls there was some debate about protecting the environment across the vast reaches of inland Western Australia, particularly at the interface of farming areas and neighbouring tracts of native bush.

Environmental groups wanted all sorts of land locked away from human access to protect it.

One government staffer took a contrarian view, pointing out to a Note operative that most of the environmental problems in the state’s interior were caused by feral animals – from voracious goats to marauding dogs.

The staffer offered one good way to solve that problem, suggesting “we just need to provide more bullets” or words to that effect.

While that expression might seem a little redneck in the refined heights of the Perth metropolis, it seems to The Note that someone was listening. The state government has now announced $8.82 million in royalties for regions funding for reducing the impact of wild dogs in rural WA.

The funding, to be spent over a five year period, will be put towards upgrading the State Barrier Fence and increasing the number of doggers undertaking what rural lobby group WA Farmers called “vital control work”. That expression is a euphemism for shooting, so it seems we are going to see the bullet at the vanguard of environmentalism in WA.