March 12, 2008
In Australia, video surveillance assists the government with pest control
In the Australian state of New South Wales, officials plan to employ seven video cameras at key border-crossing points to prevent the import of cattle infested with cattle ticks. Cattle ticks cause weakness, anemia, reduced productivity and sometimes death in cattle, and the ticks have been plaguing New South Wales, Australia’s most populated province, for years.
Luckily, the Department of Primary Industries (DPI), a government bureau which manages natural resources and other problems pertaining to industry, is on the case. They placed an experimental camera at a problem border crossing, the Pacific Highway at Tweed Heads to see whether or not it would be as effective as the employees who previously worked at the tick gates. When a vehicle containing livestock passed by, the tick monitors would phone the police for backup.
Then the DPI put up the camera and found that it was, in fact, quite effective in preventing illegal transport of potentially tick-infested cattle. By using cameras instead of human beings, vehicle information reaches police directly so that they can deal with the problem more efficiently. It also takes some of the pressure off when it comes to vehicle identification; since police have the vehicle information recorded, they can follow vehicles further down the road. Meanwhile, the twenty-five border monitors have been offered either different posts within the DPI or voluntary redundancy.
Read the ABC article on cattle tick control tactics here.
Posted by Jennifer on March 12, 2008 11:27 PM | Comments (0)
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