Wild dog attacks on ewes and lambs at Bungarby last week have cost the Alcock family about $40,000 in stock losses alone.

Greg Alcock, of Greenland Merino Stud, Bungarby, and his teenage sons, found the ewes and lambs.

About 60 eight-week-old lambs had been mauled, with 40 of those dying of their injuries and 20 requiring ongoing treatment to survive.

Twelve ewes were also attacked, with six dying.

With lambs selling to $405 and Merino ewes to $345 in sales last week, Mr Alcock estimates the value of the lost stock to be around $40,000.

But the stock losses aren’t the only financial impact – the Alcocks have spent approximately $500,000 on eight kilometres of exclusion fencing around their property to keep wild dogs out.

On this occasion, the dogs seem to have entered the property from the Merriangaah Nature Reserve to the east and have avoided security cameras set up to monitor stock and intruders.

Mr Alcock believes there would have been three to four dogs involved, judging by the way the sheep have been attacked. He suspects the dogs have moved on to the neighbours in the Palerang area, but he expects they will return.

This isn’t the first time the Alcocks have had stock attacked. They had sheep killed in January this year.

Mr Alcock has had discussions with National Parks and Wildlife Services (NPWS) about their contribution to the exclusion fence to repel wild dogs and other feral animals from nature reserves controlled by NPWS.

He has been told the fence has to be on the property boundary – the McLaughlin River. As he points out, it’s not practical even if possible to run a fence down a river. But NPWS maintains the exclusion fence is an ‘internal’ fence.

In January, Mr Alcock attempted to obtain bait from the Local Land Services (LLS) to tackle that problem. He was told the LLS was holding its bait until autumn.

“I could hardly ring the dogs and ask them to hold off for a few months, could I?,” he said.

He said he believed the LLS didn’t have enough trappers due to budget constraints, which also did not help farmers.

He is also critical of the NPWS culling and baiting programs.

“They like to bait after they have done an aerial cull. That’s crazy - no dog is going to take a bait when there are dead pigs, deer or horses available,” he said.

Mr Alcock was sceptical of plans to introduce a bill to protect Dingoes.

“If they want to protect dogs in national parks, they need to find the funding to fence them into the parks,” he said.

The Alcocks will soon commence their own baiting program, but at present are relying on traps and surveillance.

He said everyone is doing their own sort of thing.

Farmers near Bombala and Tombong have also built their own exclusion fences, like the Alcocks.

The Alcocks are using a combination of wires and netting as well as solar-powered electric fencing, but still have about four kilometres to go to complete the job.

Apart from the animal trauma and financial costs, Mr Alcock is also concerned about the mental health impact these dog attacks are having on farmers like him and his young sons.

“Finding mauled animals is confronting for anyone,” Mr Alcock said.

“Finding mauled animals which have been carefully bred and well looked after compounds that.

“Then there’s the issue of prioritising controlling feral predators at the cost of other jobs which also need to be done and the time and effort required to nurse injured animals.”

Mr Alcock is awaiting for a response from NPWS regarding this latest attack.

The Monaro Post has contacted NPWS and the LLS for comment.