Preparing a property pest-management plan

Although landowners are not required to develop a property pest-management plan, effective planning is an extremely useful management tool.

Benefits of planning

Developing a pest management plan will help you:

• effectively control pest animals on your property
• comply with pest animal control laws to show you are meeting your general biosecurity obligations
• integrate pest animal control activities with weed control activities and other components of your property plan
• coordinate pest animal control activities with your neighbours
• improve efficiency by prioritising control activities using resources at optimal times
• monitor how well control activities are working and communicate achievements.

Developing and implementing a property pest management plan

Plan

Generally, a property pest management plan involves both maps and written information. Your plan should:

• give background information on property and ownership details
• include a property map to help in analysing pest animal-related risks for your property
• define the pest animal problems on your property
• assess risks and identify priorities for pest animal control
• set overall goals and specific targets and describe the actions that you plan to undertake to achieve them
• describe how you plan to monitor your progress and measure your success.

You should also seek input from neighbours and pest animal control experts on your draft plan.

Act

Implement the control activities outlined in your plan within the set time frame and budget.

Check

You need to monitor your control activities and their effect on pest animal populations on your property.

Review

The information gathered from monitoring will help you evaluate how successful you have been in implementing control activities and meeting your targets. You can then review your plan and make necessary changes to future pest animal control activities.

Also consider...

• Learn more about pest management planning.
• Visit the PestSmart YouTube channel (CRC) for practical instructions on a range of pest animal control methods.
• Learn about the codes of practice and procedures for the human capture, handling or destruction of feral animals in Australia.