Dung beetles – Canberra’s secret weapon in its war on waste. Photo: Supplied.
More than 16,000 dung beetles are scuttling across rural parts of the ACT as the government expands release programs making use of the excrement loving insects.
The dung beetle-friendly farm program, an ACT Natural Resource Management initiative, began two years ago, as part of an effort to create a year-round faeces-fighting force.
ACT Regenerative Agriculture Officer Aaron Fahey said the beetles were an incredible resource for the city.
“Nutrient cycling, soil health, being able to store more water in the landscape, which is such a valuable thing for resilience of farming land and more broadly the environment. We’re really passionate about our beetles,” he said.
“We think it’s such a great program, because for a one-off investment it has far-reaching and legacy benefits that move into the future; to be able to have a naturalised interactive species here capitalises on all that manure.”
Canberra has a long history with dung beetles. The CSIRO spearheaded the campaign to introduce them to Australia in the 1950s to tackle flies. Unlike some foreign introductions – such as rabbits and cane toads – the beetles have been a complete success.
The latest development involves the release of winter active beetles. Summer active populations are already well established in the ACT and populations of winter active bugs will give Canberra year-round coverage.
According to the City and Environment Directorate, beetles are our “number one tool for dealing with number twos” as their activities help with nutrient cycling, and soil aeration, and as an added bonus they keep fly populations down.
The species being released in Canberra is the bubas bison, selected for its hardiness in cold climates. Despite the species’ toughness, the beetles have to be introduced to the fields in specific ways.
“The beetles really want that nutritional benefit out of the paddy, and they’re really quite fussy in some ways. So what we’re doing is we’re opening up that paddy, and we’re putting a handful of beetles underneath and then putting the paddy back on top for the manure pad, and so that protects them from the birds,” Mr Fahey said.
Beetles are introduced into active paddocks via cowpats that are two to three days old. Photo: Supplied.
Australia has 500 species of native dung beetles, but these critters have evolved to eat dry, compact marsupial excrement. When cattle farms brought a different kind of dung to Australia, it led to an explosion in fly populations.
Introducing foreign dung beetles was first proposed in the late 50s to deal with the problems flies were causing graziers. The first batch arrived the next decade, with a quarter of a million released in Queensland in 1967.
The tiny anthropods quickly won over farmers, who recorded higher outputs and healthier stocks, despite one in 1967 complaining he could no longer use cowpats to prop up irrigation pipes.
Mr Fahey said these programs had wide-reaching benefits for the Canberra community and they were only possible thanks to the support of landholders and experts in the field.
The city is partnering with 12 landholders for releases and dung beetle experts John Feehan and Russ Barrow to maximise the impact of the program.
Mr Fahey said the experience of dealing with and introducing the beetles to their new environments was unique.
“They’re really quite strong. As you could imagine, they’re digging down to 60 cm so they’re very powerful, and it’s amazing, like the ability of them to tunnel into our soils; it’s quite extraordinary.”
The dung beetle releases are part of the ACT’s natural resource management program, which looks after land, water, biodiversity, and cultural assets in the territory.
