"I couldn't get near him until he was gone, he was savage, growling and biting his stomach. It would have been better to take a gun over and shoot him. It is the cruellest death," Maryanne says.

Maremma, an ancient breed made famous by the movie Oddball, are being regularly killed by the poison 1080 as they carry out their roles as livestock guardians.

What is 1080?

* 1080 (pronounced "ten eighty") is sodium fluoroacetate

* Used for poisoning wild dogs and other introduced predators

* An odourless, tasteless white powder

* Can be diluted with water to concentrations specific for the animal species being targeted

The irony is that the poison is laid to kill the same predators they are guarding against.

Maryanne lost six Maremma in October last year after her neighbour notified her he was baiting.

Maryanne has relied on Maremma to guard the 150 goats on her 100-acre property in St Lawrence, Queensland, for the past 14 years and says she hasn't lost any stock to wild dogs in five years. She is now left with just two young dogs and has had to reduce her goat stock to 32.

"After this, I want 1080 banned," she says.

And she's not alone.

Jennifer Pirret took on the Western Australian Government and won after losing two Maremma, a rottweiler, a border collie and five goats to 1080. The Department of Biosecurity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) no longer carries out baiting in the state bushland adjoining her Hopeland property.

"We served them with a Toxic Trespass Notice," Jennifer says. "The Health Department told them [DBCA] they could no longer contain their baits within the national park."

She says after the death of her second dog, the DBCA put cameras in the park to monitor the bait, which showed none were taken by foxes; instead they were taken by native animals. These findings were consistent with a study done by Murdoch University.

Jennifer is grateful for the shotgun they have in the house that they used to put the dogs out of their misery.

"We had to jump on Izzy, which is dangerous because the foam is deadly," she says.

It took them two weeks to find their border collie, whose body was twisted around the base of a tree.

Jennifer says she has watched crows washing the baits in their stock water troughs and squabbling in the air tearing apart small pieces of meat containing bait.

'Recipe for trouble'

Chris Johnson, a professor of wildlife conservation at the University of Tasmania, has been studying Maremma and believes they are a viable alternative to 1080 in protecting livestock from wild predators.

"Maremma are very effective in doing their job, and [are] cost effective," Professor Johnson says.

"If more people understood how the dogs worked, fewer farmers would need to use 1080."

Benjamin Allen, a senior research fellow at the University of Southern Queensland specialising in dingo and wild-dog management, says there is a "healthy amount of 1080 baiting going on", but notes it is becoming easier to obtain and use.

He says its use is controlled by local councils but across Australia, the general procedure is the same: people must obtain a permit, there are rules around how far from boundaries, creeks and dwellings baits can be placed and there must be some form of notification of its use.

"Some states require uneaten baits to be picked up, but in practice people don't go and pick them up," Dr Allen says.

"I would be concerned if I had a Maremma and the neighbour was baiting. It is a recipe for trouble."

He says oats laced with 1080 are put out to kill rabbits, which can eat high doses, turning the rabbits into a larger bait.

Native animal extinction risk:

Some scientists are discovering the use of 1080 targeting wild dogs, which includes dingoes, is counterproductive and harming our ecosystem.

Arian Wallach from the University of Technology Sydney Centre for Compassionate Conservation studies how 1080 disrupts ecosystems by wiping out dingoes.

"Dingoes are pack animals that do everything together so when a family member is killed it disrupts the pack and territories are lost, which provides opportunity for smaller creatures like foxes and cats to increase their predation on smaller species," Dr Wallach explains.

"So, 1080 is increasing the extinction risk for native animals rather than decreasing it. Yet farmers are pressured into using it and [some] get subsidies to use it and the whole country is covered in it.

Native fauna have 'tolerance for 1080'

While 1080 has vocal opponents, others believe it plays an important role in managing introduced species. Greg Mifsud, the national wild dog management coordinator for the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions, believes livestock, native fauna and domestic pets would suffer enormously if we lost the ability to use 1080.

"We have not seen an impact from 1080 on native fauna," he says.

"Our fauna has evolved with this toxin in native plants and they definitely have a tolerance for it at the concentrations we use, particularly for wild dog and fox management. There are no [native] species that we know of that are susceptible to it at these concentrations."

Mr Mifsud believes the relaxing of the use of 1080, particularly in Queensland, where it can be bought from retailers, is not an issue as there are still safeguards in place.

He says overwhelmingly dog poisoning occurs because it is not where it is supposed to be and that if used correctly, a crow would have to find the bait and fly some distance for it to reach a neighbouring property.

He explains that dogs often lick the vomit of another dog that's eaten 1080, wiping out several pups in one go.

"I advise people to talk to their neighbours and ask them to place bait well away from shared fences, bury or tie baits in targeted locations and, where possible, move the Maremmas and their stock away from the boundary of the property for the period the baits are out."

'Nothing should have to die like that'

For the farmers who've lost dogs to 1080, the experience can cast a long shadow.

Michelle Oberle is scared to walk around her 320-acre property in Hivesville, Queensland since losing six Maremma.

"My seven-year-old son saw the first one die. Nothing should have to die like that. They run until they wedge themselves or crash into something and die."

She says her last dog bled so much they had to bury the bloody dirt.

They are only 2 kilometres from the town and not in a baiting area, so Michelle has no idea how her dogs got 1080.

"We aren't game to walk our little dogs in the paddocks now because we don't know where the poison is.

"Our dogs are in prison on our own property."

Source | ABC