BIOSECURITY SNIFFER DOGS REMOVED FROM NORTHERN AUSTRALIAN AIRPORTS TO ‘HIGH RISK’ INTERNATIONAL MAIL

International airports at Darwin and Cairns are once again operating without a biosecurity sniffer dog after authorities redeployed canines south to focus mostly on international mail deliveries.

In October last year, after the ABC revealed a gap in Darwin Airport’s ability to check for African swine fever, the Federal Government installed Suki, the sniffer dog.

Suki was later replaced by another dog, named Lester, who conducted biosecurity screening at Darwin until April this year.

But when the coronavirus pandemic reduced international arrivals, Lester was sent to Perth and has never been replaced.

“The workload during COVID-19 on the passenger pathway has been too low to maintain the dog’s motivation and proficiency,” said a statement from the Federal Department of Agriculture.

“Lester was relocated to Perth where he has been busy screening international mail and cargo [and detector dog JD in Cairns has been retired].

“When regular international flights start up again the department will make a risk-based assessment to determine if a detector dog is returned.”

In the last few months, Darwin Airport has received international flights from countries such as the United Kingdom, Vanuatu and Timor Leste.

Timor flights touch down

A flight from Timor Leste is due to arrive in Darwin this afternoon, and while the handful of passengers will be checked for signs of COVID-19, there will be no biosecurity dogs sniffing for potential threats to Australia’s agricultural industries.

Australian Pork Limited chief executive Margo Andrae said despite Timor having confirmed cases of African swine fever, she was not too concerned, and felt the redeployment of sniffer dogs to focus on mail pathways made sense for now.

“The reality is the flights coming in to Darwin have very low passenger numbers … and we’ve got confidence the biosecurity staff up there can do thorough searches and make sure they’re checking for [pork] products,” she said.

“In support of agriculture, those [sniffer] dogs have been redirected to the mail centres in places like Sydney and Melbourne, and never before have those centres seen the quantity of packages they’re seeing coming in now, so [international mail] is a high risk for us.

“So we’re not as concerned at the moment [about sniffer dogs being removed from the north], but we certainly are watching and as soon as international travel resumes we’ll be seeking to have those dogs put back on duty.”

It is understood there are 42 biosecurity sniffer dogs working in Australia.

Almost 60,000 biosecurity threats found in the mail

According to the Federal Department of Agriculture, the volume of overseas mail arriving into Australia has increased significantly this year.

“In response to the changed [biosecurity] risk, detector dogs were redeployed to primarily screen the mail pathway,” it said in a statement.

The department said between January and October 2020, almost 60,000 mail items had been intercepted “with actionable biosecurity material”.

“Over 3,000 articles intercepted contained pork or pork-related products,” it said.

New South Wales’ chief veterinary officer Dr Sarah Britton said the threat of African swine fever getting into Australia remained high.

“The risk has changed, it hasn’t reduced,” Dr Britton said.

“So having less people flying in from overseas has assisted us, but what’s happened instead is more food packages, and other things, are coming through [the mail].

“And when the Commonwealth Government did testing at airports, over 50 percent of pork products (seized) were showing African swine fever.”