Background. Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) commissioned this third Benchmarking Australian Sheep Parasite survey to benchmark the 2018 sheep parasite control practices of Australian woolgrowers. The results of this survey will provide industry with information to address the parasite control needs of sheep. For the first time, this survey will compare the parasite control practices of wool sheep with meat sheep and cross-bred sheep. Documenting current parasite practices will highlight the effectiveness of extension networks and identify where more attention is required. By comparing the results of this survey with two previous surveys, we can measure change in attitudes to parasite control which will inform extension work.

The two previous surveys were conducted in 2004 and 2012 which surveyed the years 2003 and 2011, respectively. Both surveyed only sheep producers who managed 500 sheep or more. The 2004 survey was conducted through the IPM-Sheep project, funded by AWI and comprised 30 questions. It was the largest survey of its kind in Australia with 1365 responses to the main questionnaire and 958 to the short survey. In 2012 a follow up survey was commissioned by AWI and MLA from which 575 usable responses were achieved for the main survey and 444 for the short survey.

Methods. For the first time the Benchmarking Australian Sheep Parasite survey was conducted online with paper copies available upon request. An invitation to participate in the survey with a link to the online questionnaire was sent to the AWI email list of approximately 6460 wool producers, with only those who managed 100 sheep or more asked to proceed with the survey. The survey was available online for 10 weeks launching on the 5th February 2019 and closing on 16th April 2019. Three reminder emails were sent out to wool growers on weeks 4, 6 and 8. A short five question survey was emailed to the same email cohort at the end of the survey period to evaluate non-response bias in the responses to the full questionnaire. The majority of the survey questions related to the calendar year 2018.

Summary of findings. The survey involved a total of 6460 initial emails to wool producers who had registered their email accounts with AWI. A total of 354 responses were obtained for the main survey with a further 250 responses for the short survey. Not all questions were attempted by all respondents, the number of respondents per question is presented with the data. The survey response rate for the main survey was lower than the previous two surveys which received 1365 responses in 2004 and 575 in 2011. Survey fatigue, the length of the questionnaire, severe drought in a large part of the country and presentation of the questionnaire as an online survey were all possible contributors to the low response rate. The surveys will be referred to by the calendar year referred to in the respective survey questionnaires: 2003, 2011 and 2018.

Australian Wool Innovation Limited (AWI) commissioned three cross-sectional surveys of sheep producers' sheep parasite control practices over a 15-year period from 2003 to 2018. The aims were to document current sheep parasite incidence and control practices, to measure change in sheep parasite control practices over time and to inform extension messages for sheep industry advisors and sheep farmers. The surveys were conducted in 2004, 2012 and 2019 measuring sheep parasite control practices in the years 2003, 2011 and 2018. The surveys focused on incidence and control of the three major sheep parasite groups; gastrointestinal nematodes, blowflies and lice. The 2003 and 2011 surveys were paper-based and the 2018 survey was accessed via a link to an online survey. This article is the first in a series of four presenting the results of the three surveys and will cover methods, demographics, production systems and general parasite management. Response rates to the surveys declined each year from the peak response rate in 2003 (n = 1365 in 2003; n = 575 in 2011 and n = 354 in 2018). Mean reported rainfall was significantly lower in 2018 (407 mm) than in 2003 (611 mm) and 2011 (650 mm). The demographics of the respondents and their production systems were largely similar between the three surveys for respondent age, median property size, income from wool and sheep meat, proportion of the property area cropped, median sheep dry sheep equivalent (DSEs), ewes as a proportion of the total flock and median cattle DSEs. Month of weaning was more likely to be in summer months for summer dominant rainfall areas and spring for intermediate and winter dominant rainfall areas. There was a marked increase in the proportion of respondents asking for an animal health history when introducing sheep to their flock from 2011 (9%) to 2018 (65%). Similarly, a greater proportion of respondents isolated introduced sheep for at least 2 weeks in 2018 (82%) compared with 2011 (19%). However, there was a decrease in the use of a quarantine lice treatment for introduced sheep from 2011 (50%) to 2018 (21%). Farmers rated themselves, other farmers or member of their staff as most important sources of information on parasite control in both 2011 and 2018. There was a significant increase in the proportion of respondents visiting the ParaBoss suite of websites from 2011 to 2018 confirming their growing importance for information delivery and decision support.

Cross-sectional surveys of sheep parasite control practices in Australia were conducted in 2004, 2012 and 2019 to document parasite problems, control practices and measure change over time. This article reports the results pertaining to gastrointestinal nematode infection; comparisons between years are mostly descriptive and not based on statistical inference. There was a general increase in the use of grazing management to prepare clean pastures for sheep to control gastrointestinal nematode infections with the largest increases in the use of: cropping, long acting anthelmintics to prepare clean pastures, feeding strategies, selecting rams for resistance to nematodes, and leaving some sheep untreated. The proportion of respondents using faecal worm egg count monitoring (WEC) and the number of WEC monitors per year were similar in 2003 (weaners: 3.0 WEC/year, adult ewes: 2.6 WEC/year) and 2018 (lambs and weaners and adult ewes both 3.1 WEC/year) but lower in 2011 (lambs and weaners: 2.0 WEC/year, adult ewes: 2.9 WEC/year), whilst there was a higher number of anthelmintic treatments given in 2011 than 2003 and 2018 which were similar. There was an increase in the proportion of respondents carrying out WEC monitors themselves from 2011 (21%) to 2018 (30%) and a corresponding reduction in the use of private laboratories, government laboratories and veterinarians with regional differences in who carried out WECs. The top three anthelmintic groups used did not differ between the three survey years with macrocyclic lactones the most used followed by benzimidazoles (BZ) and levamisole (LEV) although the percentage of MLs used in 2011 and 2018 was lower than in 2003 with higher proportions of respondents using BZ and LEV groups in the latter two survey years. Moxidectin was in the most commonly used active in all survey years. There was an increase in the use of combination of anthelmintics from different groups, especially for a combination of three anthelmintics (2003: 4.4%, 2011: 19.1%, 2018: 21.5%), with lower use of single anthelmintics in 2011 (57.0%) and 2018 (55.4%) compared with 2003 (74.5%). The use of testing for anthelmintic resistance was generally low across the survey years with a lower proportion of respondents using tests in 2011 and 2018 than in 2003 (2003:48%, 2011: 29%, 2018: 37%). Time of year, results from WEC and seasonal weather condition were the most important factors when deciding when to apply anthelmintic treatment.

Although there is evidence that passive surveillance services provided by the public can be very valuable (in terms of both reduced program costs and increased probability of success in managing pests) little is known about the return on investment for this type of expenditure.

Enabling passive surveillance requires community information campaigns and incentive schemes. This takes funds away from other activities, so it is important to estimate the value of these campaigns relative to other alternatives, such as increasing active (structured) surveillance.

This project contributes towards an understanding of the value of passive surveillance provided by members of the community using a case study: the red imported fire ant (RIFA) eradication program in Brisbane. The RIFA program, managed by Biosecurity Queensland Control Centre (BQCC), is well documented. BQCC has an intense public awareness program with multiple activities, including broad and targeted coverage of distinct community groups and zones within the Brisbane area. We have combined data on community engagement events, reports from the public and nest detections recorded by BQCC, with census data to estimate relationships between demographic characteristics of an area and the likelihood that residents from that area will report encounters with RIFA.

In this report we present background information and hypotheses regarding the role of community surveillance in the management of biological invasions. This is followed by details of the datasets used and results of a number of analyses. We show the importance of the data clean-up process and identify the limitations that arise when a database designed primarily to track public reports is used for spatio-temporal analyses where accurate dating of events is important.