Sustainable grazing in the nationally iconic southern rangelands of Australia requires landholders to actively manage the grazing pressure from both domestic livestock and non-domestic herbivores. Landholders have primary responsibility for controlling the non-domestic herbivores. In doing so, they must meet the Australian public’s expectations for resource conservation (mainly a public good) and animal welfare. Governments are also involved in the management of non-domestic herbivores via native and feral animal legislation and control programs. The Australian public will not accept cruelty to animals, perceived or otherwise. In this paper we explore the challenges faced by landholders in their attempts to manage the grazing pressure from native herbivores, particularly kangaroos, feral goats and feral pigs, while meeting the Australian public’s expectations for animal welfare. Landholders typically live on extensive properties and their capacity to manage these is influenced by high climate variability, low labour availability, commodity price fluctuations and limited capital available for investment in new technologies. The additional requirement to reduce the grazing pressure from kangaroos, feral goats and feral pigs is a significant burden on already time-poor landholders. Hence, there is a critical disparity between landholders’ capacity and their responsibility to effectively manage the non-domestic herbivores on their properties. We suggest that current expectations of landholders to deliver public benefits by publicly acceptable practices are unreasonable. Further, we suggest that governments should accept more responsibility for managing non-domestic grazing pressure. The concept of duty of care to land management provides a means by which a more appropriate division of responsibilities between landholders and government could be achieved to ensure that valued attributes of this iconic Australian landscape are retained.

在澳大利亚具有国家标志性意义的南部牧场的可持续放牧要求土地所有者积极应对来自家畜和非家畜食草动物的放牧压力。土地所有者对控制非本地食草动物负有主要责任。为此，它们必须满足澳大利亚公众对资源保护（主要是公共物品）和动物福利的期望。各国政府还通过本地和野生动物立法和控制计划参与了非本地草食动物的管理。澳大利亚公众将不会接受对动物的残酷对待，无论是否感知到。在本文中，我们探讨了土地所有者在管理本地食草动物（尤其是袋鼠，野山羊和野猪）的放牧压力方面所面临的挑战，同时满足澳大利亚公众对动物福利的期望。土地所有者通常生活在广阔的土地上，其管理这些土地的能力受到气候变化率高，劳动力供应低，商品价格波动以及可用于新技术投资的资金有限的影响。降低袋鼠，野山羊和野猪的放牧压力的额外要求给已经很贫乏的土地所有者带来了沉重负担。因此，土地所有者的能力与有效管理非本地草食动物对其财产的责任之间存在重大差距。我们认为，目前对土地所有者以公众可接受的方式提供公共利益的期望是不合理的。进一步，我们建议政府应承担更多管理非家庭放牧压力的责任。土地管理的责任义务概念提供了一种手段，可以在土地所有者和政府之间实现更适当的责任分工，以确保保留这一标志性澳大利亚景观的宝贵属性。