Media monitoring

Feral dogs the main target

Herald Sun, Page: 9 Monday, 9 January 2012

Welcome to Swifts Creek, home to about 278 people, 774 guns and a tank.
Firearms outnumber the local population more than two to one, but there has not been a single shooting accidental or otherwise in recent memory.
The one-pub farming town on the road from Bairnsdale to Omeo has an Easter racing carnival and the Tambo Valley Gun Club.
Local collectors, including one man restoring a 60-tonne Vietnam-era Centurion tank, boost the number of firearms.
But farmers also have multiple rifles, shotguns and even semiautomatics to protect against thousands of feral dogs.
In the past year, one farmer lost about 1500 lambs and another more than 1000.
Tambo Valley Gun Club secretary, Peter Sandy, feared it was only a matter of time before the dogs seen in packs of up to 10 killed a hiker.
"They just kill and maim for fun," he said. "One morning I found 54 maimed lambs." Local Russell Foster, 42, shot 21 last year, but not before they claimed 350 sheep.
But even without the threat of the dogs, guns are a part of life in Swifts Creek.
Gun club president Thomas Morgan and Mr Sandy host annual gun safety education days for teenage students at Swifts Creek P-12 School.
"If they come into contact with a firearm down the track they know how to be safe," Mr Morgan said.
Some shoot clay pigeons or hunt for recreation, but collector Paul Scott, 43, has turned a Centurion tank into a passion.
It is in working order except for the replica machineguns and demilitarised cannon and Mr Scott is restoring it "It’s like an old vintage car," he said. "One day they won’t be around, and if you can keep one running that’s great."

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