File photo. Photo: 123RF
A Far North farmer who has been losing hundreds of sheep to wild dogs wants the canine attackers officially labelled pests, so there can be more freedom to eradicate them.
John Nilsson from Shenstone Farms, south of Cape Reinga, told Checkpoint, he had seen packs of large dogs in the area and something needed to be done before somebody was seriously injured or killed.
It comes after an international ultra runner and his support crew were attacked by dogs on the Te Araroa trail in January.
There was still a wild dog warning along the Te Paki Coastal track, about 14 kilometres from Cape Reinga.
Dogs were spotted In November at several points along the trail, including Twilight Beach, Scott Point and Ninety Mile Beach.
People were told not to walk alone in those areas, and Nilsson said that was a very good idea.
"I'd be quite worried, because some of them are quite big and a dog's a dog."
Nilsson said the wild dog packs were just as bad as ever.
"A lot of them are yellow coloured dogs as big as a German Shepherd, they do travel around in packs, although often you'll come across one just on its own.
"We work all the time to keep them under control. Generally, they are all around the place and move around a lot which makes it very, very hard to keep track of where they are."
Nilsson lost about 120 ewes and lambs that were killed when a pack of nine dogs got into his main mob of sheep.
"It was a major operation to get them under control."
He said the attacks were "very, very distressing", and it would make it a lot easier to eradicate the dogs if they could be recognised as a feral dog population, which would allow them to use poison to control the spread of them.
"We would have more tools, we would be able to trap more efficiently would be able to actively go further afield and hunt them.
"I can only control in my area, and am only allowed to shoot them if they are worrying your stock."
Nilsson said the dogs were notoriously hard to hunt, because it was a large area and they moved around a lot, but it had to be done.
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