Aerial culling program removes 6000 feral pigs but many millions of the pests remain

Park rangers at Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory resumed aerial culling after the program was halted for several years after a bad helicopter crash during previous culling efforts.

While 6000 feral pigs have been shot during since May, park authorities acknowledge the feral animal load across the almost 20,000 square kilometre park still needs more work.

It is not known how many pigs there are in the park.

It is estimated there are 24 million feral pigs in Australia.

Buffalo, donkeys and wild horses have also been targeted in past culling programs in the Top End.

Kakadu park operations manager Sean Barclay said talks are being held with Traditional Owners to devise a bigger culling program.

Mr Barclay told ABC Radio the aerial shooting was the most effective way of controlling feral animals in the rugged Kakadu landscape.

He said the 6000 feral pigs had been culled in the north of the park.

"It is a lot of pigs and there is still a lot more out there," he said.

Mr Barclay said more culling programs were planned across the park "to bring numbers to a manageable level".

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The vast uninhabited expanses of the Territory cause of a lot of logistical problems for culling.

Efforts to tame the explosion of wild camel numbers in the NT and the top part of South Australia have been criticised as being piecemeal.

There are believed to more than a million wild camels in Australia.

Before Kakadu's culling program was halted after the helicopter accident in 2019, the aerial program had experience success in reducing the numbers.

In 2017, a culling program saw 3654 horses, 1965 buffalo, 294 pigs and a small number of donkeys culled.

There are also vast numbers of native animals like kangaroos running wild across the Top End.

The nation's many millions of feral animals are considered a major threat to stock as a potential carrier of exotic diseases such as African swine fever and foot and mouth disease.

Earlier this year it was found Japanese encephalitis had infected feral pigs in the NT meaning this latest virus will be impossible to eradicate from Australia.