Pest animal control strategies

Taking a proactive approach to pest animal control is generally much better than waiting for problems to occur. Deciding on a pest management strategy early allows you to plan your activities and allocate a budget for dealing with your pest animal problems.

Doing nothing may save you money in the short term, but your property may suffer from pest animal impacts, which may cost you in the long term. You may also face penalties for non-compliance with pest animal control laws.

Choosing a pest management strategy

To make cost-effective business decisions on pest animal control, you need to gather information on:

  • the size of the pest animal problem on your property and how much it is costing you
  • total costs of available pest animal control methods and likely benefits of each, including time-frames.

Based on this information, you can perform a simple cost-benefit analysis on various pest management strategies for your pest animal problem. This may help you decide which of the broad strategies described below is best for your business.

Planned, ongoing management

Planned, ongoing pest management strategies have high initial and ongoing costs. Yet, this approach is also likely to deliver long-term benefits with reduced pest animal numbers and impacts.

Local eradication

If you have a small property with a well-defined pest animal problem, you may consider local eradication strategies. This approach has high initial costs but limited ongoing costs as only monitoring will be required. If successful, local eradication can deliver long-term benefits for your property.

Crisis management

If pest animal numbers are high and their impacts are obvious, you may decide to implement crisis management strategies. This approach has high initial costs but no ongoing costs. You will probably reduce pest animal impacts in the short term, but long-term benefits are unlikely.

Also consider...

  • Last reviewed: 18 Oct 2018
  • Last updated: 19 Oct 2018