Five notices in order, and one from the council
Each notice is a guide. Each opens the way a notice on a gate does: who it is from, what it says, and when it applies.
- Notice 01
The biosecurity duty on your land
A duty, so far as is reasonably practicable, for whoever deals with biosecurity matter or a carrier and knows, or ought reasonably to know, the risk; and the occupier is taken to possess what is on the land unless they show another person had it.
From: Biosecurity Act 2015, sections 12, 22 and 23
- Notice 02
1080 fox baiting and your neighbours
At least 3 days’ notice to neighbours within 1 kilometre; signs up until at least 4 weeks after the last bait.
From: the NSW EPA’s 1080 guidance
- Notice 03
Feral deer on private land
No game hunting licence needed on private land: anyone with a firearms licence may control deer there with the landholder’s permission.
From: the NSW Government and DPIRD
- Notice 04
Rabbits, calicivirus and pindone
Calicivirus used only as its label or an APVMA permit directs; pindone under its own order; the council’s baiting twice a year.
From: the EPA’s orders and The Hills Shire Council
- Notice 05
Trapping and the cruelty law
No steel-jawed trap may be set in any part of NSW, or possessed with the intention of using it to trap an animal; and how often the codes say a trap is checked.
From: Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979, section 23
- Pinned by the council · dated
Spring 2026 fox baiting in local reserves
Fox baits containing 1080 in local reserves in the Sydney North Region from Monday 12 October to Friday 30 October 2026. The council says cats and dogs, leashed or not, stay out of baited reserves for those dates and up to 4 weeks after, and dogs on leads may return from Saturday 28 November 2026.
From: The Hills Shire Council’s fox baiting page, which names the reserves
For the people behind the gate
This guide is for owners and occupiers of acreage and bush-edge blocks in The Hills Shire: the people who get a neighbour’s baiting notice, see a deer by the fence, or wonder whether an old trap in the shed is still legal. The law that reaches them is New South Wales law, and every page here keeps to it.
Two facts set the scene. Greater Sydney’s regional pest animal plan names the Hills among the local government areas where feral deer are found, and it describes wild rabbits as widely distributed and well established throughout the region. Foxes are controlled in coordinated programs in autumn and spring, timed to their breeding and the dispersal of the young.
From, says, applies
A notice on a gate is short because it has to be. Each guide here starts the same way, then goes slower than any notice could.
- From names the Act, order or agency the rule comes from. A council’s requirement is labelled as the council’s, and guidance is labelled as guidance, because neither is an Act.
- Says is the rule in one line.
- Applies carries the conditions: who, where and when. The duty and the defence on this board each come with their own, and the guides print those words rather than smoothing them away.
A red notice on the board is a baiting warning. Red is kept for that and nothing else.
Acts, orders and agency pages
The guides rest on the Biosecurity Act 2015, the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979, the EPA’s pest control orders for 1080, pindone and calicivirus, the NSW Government’s pest animal pages, DPIRD’s codes of practice and standard operating procedures, Greater Sydney Local Land Services’ regional plan, and The Hills Shire Council’s own program pages. Each page lists its sources at its foot, and each was checked against them on 9 October 2026.
Start with the notice on the biosecurity duty; the other four build on it.