Astonishing images highlighting the interactions between invasive animals and other species have featured in the Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre’s (IA CRC) national Feral Photos competition.
The winning photos include an image of a wild dog lunching on a bearded dragon, a native collared Sparrowhawk taking down an Indian Mynah, a Fox running at full speed across a farmers crop and two wild boars fighting it out in a rough and tumble boxing match.
This year the race between first and second place was tight, with Kylie Piper taking the winning photo just north of the Dog Fence in South Australia, just south of Lake Eyre.
[social_quote duplicate=”no” align=”default”]“The dog walked across picked up the central bearded dragon and with one shake of its head, killed it,” Ms Piper said.[/social_quote]
Second place winner, Catherine Begley, snapped the amazing image of the Sparrowhawk taking down an Indian Mynah in Benella, Victoria.
“I saw the Sparrowhawk on the side of the road and I thought I should take a couple of pics. It wasn’t until after I got home and had a look at the photos that I realised the other bird in the picture was actually an Indian Mynah (an introduced species),” Ms Begley said.
National Natural Resource Management (NRM) facilitator Jason Wishart said the winning images really highlight the impacts that invasive animals can have on the Australian landscape.
“All the winning images tell a story about pest animal management, whether that be environmental or agricultural damage, or interactions between invasive animals and other species,” he said.
Specific entries were also judged for the remote camera category and showed just how much this technology is being incorporated into wildlife and pest management.
The winning photo by Thomas Garrett of wild pigs in an intense boxing match is a great example.
“This image shows how well we can now capture animal behaviour using remote camera technology,’’ Mr Wishart said.
“I think it would be extremely difficult to get this photo of wild boars fighting by standard photography as their behaviour would likely be influenced by the photographer standing that close by.”
Now in its fifth year, more than 300 photos were entered from all over Australia for the 2015 version of Feral Photos competition.
Winners were chosen based on how well the image told a story of impact along with quality, clarity and difficulty in obtaining the image.
All winning photos can be viewed in the feral photos website.
