Western Shield

For the Libyan armed group, see: Libya Shield Force

Western Shield, managed by Western Australia's Department of Parks and Wildlife, is a nature conservation program safeguarding Western Australia's animals and protecting them from extinction. The program was set up in 1996 and as of 2009 was the largest and most successful wildlife conservation program ever undertaken in Australia.

Between the 1920s and 1950s scientists synthetically developed a poison called sodium fluoroacetate (commonly called 1080 poison) for use in biological warfare. Subsequently, it has been found that sodium fluoroacetate occurs naturally in many plants of the south-west coast of Western Australia and many of the native mammalian herbivore fauna in that region have evolved with a natural tolerance to the poison. The plants in the genus Gastrolobium, are commonly called "poison peas", and farmers often suffer livestock fatalities due to wandering animals that encounter and graze on the deadly plants.

During the late 1980s, a conservation program named "Fox Glove", was implemented to control the population of foxes by lacing dried meat baits and sausages with 1080 poison. Fox Glove was very effective in allowing native species' population to increase. This was due to the local eradication of introduced predators, namely foxes and feral cats, although the control of feral cats was much less effective by this means as the cats favor live prey. Poison coated oats and carrots were occasionally used to control herbivorous invasive species, including rabbits and rats.

Since 1996 when Western Shield was initiated, a Beechcraft Baron flies 55,000 km every three months to drop the 770,000 1080 poison baits. They cover an area greater than half the size of Tasmania as they deliver bait into most national parks, nature reserves and state forests of the south-west of Western Australia.

The Fox Glove program primarily targeted foxes, but the baiting method proved effective for other predators as well. As a result, native species' population increased dramatically. For example, when baiting began in 1993 for medium-sized predators such as woylies in the jarrah forest of Kingston Block near Manjimup. As a result, native mammals increased sevenfold over the next five years. As the native populations increased, additional measures such as reintroduction and translocation of native species helped as well. The reintroduced animals were from breeding programs or were taken from high, self-sustaining populations elsewhere in the southwest. Western Shield has carried out lots of translocation activities to other P&W managed lands, privately owned conservation sanctuaries of the Australian Wildlife Conservancy, other states' conservation lands and to islands.

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