In their eyes they’re the only thing standing between Australia and a highly destructive foreign species – one that tampers wist our food and water supplies, destroys our flora and fauna and alters the very face of the earth. They are mostly blue-collar, of modest financial means yet highly resourceful, and unapologetic in their love for the great outdoors. They use high-powered rifles, high-tensile bows, pigdogs and whisker-sharp hunting knives – whatever it takes – to dispatch their foes. They are Australia’s estimated 80,000 pig hunters, sworn enemies of the 24m feral pigs that grew from small populations introduced by Europeans settlers in the 19th century.

“Yes, there’s an adrenaline rush you get chasing a fully grown bull into the scrub. But at the end of the day we are doing a community service,” says Clint Macro, editor of Bacon Busters magazine, the bible of Australia’s pig-hunting community. “If the government banned pig hunting – which is what a lot of people want them to do – we’d be hit by a plague of them. Not just pigs but foxes, wild dogs, buffalos, goats, rabbits … the list is endless.”

But there’s a dark side to pig hunting: a thoughtless, macho minority who not only take pleasure in inhumanely dispatching pigs, but who mistreat pigdogs and help spread feral pigs to new parts.

Feral pigs cost farmers $100m a year, eating 20,000 tonnes of sugarcane and up to 40 % of newborn sheep. But that’s only the icing on the cake. Avid rotters and diggers, feral pigs hoe into natural ecosystems for tubers and words, causing erosion and soil loss. They feed on birds’ eggs, reptiles, young and small mammals, invertebrates – just about any native species that crosses their path. They foul wetlands by altering nutrient and water cycles, and are a vector for exotic diseases like foot and mouth disease and Japanese encephalitis. It’s not for nothing environmentalists call the risk posed by feral pigs to Australia a "ticking time bomb".

It’s not known how many feral pigs hunters remove from the ecosystem every year, but their contribution is a significant one. “Control of feral pigs requires a combined effort from many sectors,” says Ebony Arms of Animal Control Technologies Australia, which manufacturers baits to poison pigs, rabbits and other feral pests. “Baiting, trapping and mustering from helicopters are all effective. But to get the big old boars that have grown to old age and are too smart for traps – the ones that do all the breeding – shooting is needed. But the shooters have to be trained and qualified to kill pigs humanely – one clean shot to the back of the head.”

Until a more fool-proof method for culling pigs than shooting is devised, the RSPCA tacitly condones pig shooting in Australia. “But we certainly don’t approve using dogs to hunt pigs, either from the dogs’ perspective or the pigs,” says RSPCA Queensland spokesperson Michael Beatty. Unlike shooters, doggers use specially trained pigdog breeds to chase pigs down and hold them by their ears until the owners arrive and slice the pig’s throat with a knife. Or so the theory goes …

“That’s what’s meant to happen,” Beatty explains. “But often the pig can be half torn to pieces before the hunter gets there and then there is potential damage to the dogs. They can be very badly gored by the pigs husks. Look at any pig dog that’s been around for a while; they’re covered in scars and generally don’t have very good lives. There are exceptions with hunters who take very good care of their dogs. But ultimately the sport seems to attract irresponsible people who should not be allowed to have dogs, let alone children.”

A senior ranger for the NSW Livestock, Health and Pest Authority working in the Sydney basin, Geoff Mills, believes most pig hunters are responsible folk concerned about humane killing and who take pride in their dogs – using electronic homing collars to ensure they don’t get lost. “However, there is a minority who tarnish the reputation of hunters by hunting on private property without permission, lose pig dogs in the wild and transport pigs to city fringe areas so they don’t have to travel to far from their homes to hunt,” he says.

Bacon Busters’ Macro concedes feral pig transporting does take place, and that his magazine needs to investigate the practice (why it hasn’t already, he couldn’t say). He also recognises that pigdogs can get lost, and that radio-controlled homing collars should be a legal requirement. But he maintains dogging is a culturally legitimate sport: “I am a dogger and a dog lover who likes to see dogs doing what they have been doing for thousands of years,” he says. “People think we are a bunch of yahoos who just shoot everything we see. But for me, pig hunting is about conservation of the environment, about protecting native species and spending quality time in the bush with the family and friends. What’s the harm in that?”

From an impartial perspective – very little. Anyone who's spent time in rural or remote Australia will know there's not much do in terms of sport or recreation, which is one of the main reasons pig-hunting has been so well embraced.

More so, we should pay pig-hunters, or at the very least reimbure their expenses. Not only could this help turn the war against feral pigs in our favour, but it would bring responsible pig hunters who do the right thing in terms of both their dogs and the pigs into closer contact with the law. At the same time, it would ostracize and help identify the bloodthirsty minority of pig hunters tarnishing the name of what is, once all the political-correctness and self-righteous rhetoric is removed, a community service.