![]() The second study challenges the idea that dingoes are being bred out of existence, and that Australia’s problem is with wild dogs. Both have ramifications for governments and landowners. Understanding of the role dingoes play in Australia has advanced through the publication of two multi-year studies. “We can argue all day long about whether it is a native animal or not, we can argue all day long about whether it is a species in its own right or not, but the reality is they have an ecological role as a top predator in the food chain and have really important cultural significance for many of Australia’s First Nations people,” he says. But Ritchie says the dingoes’ vital part in national life should not be lost in the discussion. This all makes for a complicated relationship between the animal and its country. “It’s not something we should be taking lightly.” “It is really stressful and can lead to really bad mental health outcomes, including suicide,” he says. Euan Ritchie, a professor of wildlife ecology and conservation at Deakin University, says the emotional impact on a grazier who finds that dozens of sheep have been taken or left maimed should not be underestimated. In SA alone, the cost has been estimated at nearly $90m a year. There was a horrible echo of that attack when a toddler was mauled in the island’s Orchid Beach neighbourhood in April.īut the most consistent threat from dingoes and wild dogs is to livestock. ![]() In 2001 nine-year-old Clinton Gage was killed by two dingoes on Fraser Island. The dingo’s problematic place in the public mind cannot be divorced from highly traumatic attacks on children – most notably, the death of baby Azaria Chamberlain at Uluru in 1980. The animal appears in cave paintings, rock carvings and dreamtime stories. Traditional owners in parts of the country for thousands of years adopted dingoes into their society, where they were seen as having a symbiotic relationship as “semi-wild companions”. Like all apex predators, they also play a vital role in keeping the ecosystem in balance by, for example, reducing the impact of feral goats and kangaroos on vegetation.ĭingoes also play a central role in Australia’s spiritual and cultural heritage. Photograph: Kelly Barnes/The Guardianįrom an ecological perspective, there is some evidence that dingoes can help control numbers of introduced predators such as feral cats and foxes. That categorisation was dropped in 2018 after it was decided the dingo was just a dog after all.Ī kangaroo on the property. It was listed as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature because of the threat of hybridisation due to crossbreeding with wild dogs. There is no clear agreement on whether the dingo is a type of dog, a subspecies or a species in its own right. One of the remarkable things about dingoes, as a large, charismatic animal, is how much is still to be learned about them. But if we call them a dingo they’re a native species and that raises a range of issues.” Descended from wolves If we call them a wild dog they’re not a native species. “The reason is pretty clear,” Letnic says. Mike Letnic, a professor of conservation biology and ecosystem restoration at the University of New South Wales, says the attempt at eradication is broader: that over the past 25 years the dingo has been all but wiped from the public language used by governments and landowners. But he says the threat to cattle in the north is so small as to be virtually nonexistent and believes a statewide bounty is “not a control program, it’s an eradication program”.Įvelyn Downs from the air. Like everyone who spoke to Guardian Australia, he acknowledges there is a significant problem with dogs south of the fence, where their impact on sheep flocks can be devastating. It offers further support to lay traps and poisoned baits. For the past year, it has offered a statewide $120 bounty to landowners who kill a dog on their property, regardless of which side of the fence they live on. If this is the case, it is not reflected in the policies of SA’s Liberal government. “I’m not aware of any evidence against it.” “You can find a dozen scientific papers in a heartbeat to support this,” he says. ![]() ![]() That, in turn, leads to healthier cattle. He cites evidence that keeping dingoes around stops kangaroo numbers getting out of control and allows a healthier coverage of vegetation and grass. Knight says his approach is informed not just by environmental and ecological concern, which includes respecting the role the country’s largest land-based predator plays in the food chain, but economics. ![]()
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