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Experts have declared as a success a pig cull for which a team of professional hunters from New Zealand was paid US$3.9 million ($5.63 million) to kill 5036 pigs on a Californian island - $1117 a pig.
The Paeroa-based Prohunt NZ company was called in during April 2005 to kill about 2000 pigs on the island of Santa Cruz.
The shooters killed the last of 5036 pigs on July 5 last year.
Scientists now say the cull has been a complete success and the endangered Santa Cruz island fox and nine rare plants are recovering.
The Channel Islands National Park and the private Nature Conservancy, which owns 75 per cent of the island, have been monitoring the results of the eradication 29km off the Ventura County coast.
The island was fenced into five sections, and pigs were methodically culled from each part, with as many as 30 dogs used to track and corral them.
The New Zealanders sometimes shot from a small helicopter, always using non-lead bullets to avoid contaminating young eagles, which often eat dead animals.
Unless they were shot in a riverbed, the pigs were left where they lay.
The conservancy spent more than US$5 million on the project, the rest of the money going to capture and relocate non-native golden eagles.
The native Santa Cruz Island fox, a cat-sized creature found only on the island, was being preyed upon by the eagles, which Park Service officials said migrated to the Channel Islands in the 1990s to feed on the booming population of pigs.
Kate Faulkner, the Park Service's chief of natural resources management, said they expected to spend another US$3 million over the next three years to further improve conditions for native plants.
Prohunt tracked the pigs using helicopters with snipers, traps, dogs and electronic collars.
Officials said the methods were "following euthanasia guidelines set forth by the American Medical Veterinary Association".
"We deny that vehemently," said Richard M. Feldman, a Santa Barbara businessman who sued the park's owners, saying the killings were inhumane and that the Park Service violated its own rules and procedures when it approved the environmental data to support the eradication.
Mr Feldman's suit was dismissed and is now under submission to the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Prohunt has now been contracted to cull deer, pigs and goats on the Nature Conservancy's properties in Hawaii.
- NZPA
