NEW ZEALAND has a novel solution for dealing with a crap situation: import dung beetles. The country has approved the release of 11 Australian species to manage its massive heap of livestock dung.
Adult dung beetles lay their eggs in manure, which the brood feed on after hatching and break down into sawdust. An inhabited mound of dung can disappear in 48 hours, compared to a month for one that is left out in a field.
That may seem unimportant, but for a nation with a large cattle population, it鈥檚 not.
Advertisement
As the mounds rot, they release greenhouse gases and their nutrients and bacteria leach into waterways. Manure accounts for around 14 per cent of New Zealand鈥檚 emissions of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas. Beetles can make short work of these problems.
Neither Australia nor New Zealand have native beetles that can handle livestock dung pats. But in the late 1960s, Australia introduced some from Europe and Africa. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e been hugely successful,鈥� says of Landcare Research in Auckland, New Zealand.
And it鈥檚 not just the environment that can benefit. Forgie points out that removing the pats should also get rid of flies and parasitic worms that breed in dung: in Hawaii, they cut pest flies breeding in dung by 95 per cent.
