DISTINGUISHING DINGOES & THEIR VALUE
First, let’s start this blog post with information from the Queensland Government website. The website states:
The terms ‘wild dog’, ‘feral dog’, ‘dingo’ and ‘hybrid’ have different meanings—they are not interchangeable, and it is important to understand the differences.
Wild dogs are any dogs that are not domesticated. This includes dingoes, feral dogs and hybrids.
In each case, whether wild dogs are dingoes, feral dogs or hybrids, yearling wild dogs frequently disperse more than 100 km from the place where they were born.
Aboriginal people probably brought dingoes to Australia from Asia as they are the only non marsupial predator on the continent.
The arrival of dingoes saw the extinction of other top predators such as the Tasmanian Devil, restricted now to the island state of Tasmania, and Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) which is now extinct in all states.
Aboriginal people in Central Australia still use dingoes today, to aid their hunting.
While the dingo is an introduced species, it has been in Australia long enough to become a functional part of the natural ecological system as a top-order predator. The dingo is widely considered to have replaced the thylacine in that role and was held to be solely responsible for the disappearance of the thylacine on mainland Australia.
Research published in 2011, however, suggests that increased competition and predation from growing human populations, combined with climate change, were also contributing factors to the thylacine’s extinction.
Wild dogs are any dogs that are not domesticated. This includes dingoes, feral dogs and hybrids.
In each case, whether wild dogs are dingoes, feral dogs or hybrids, yearling wild dogs frequently disperse more than 100 km from the place where they were born.
Aboriginal people probably brought dingoes to Australia from Asia as they are the only non marsupial predator on the continent.
The arrival of dingoes saw the extinction of other top predators such as the Tasmanian Devil, restricted now to the island state of Tasmania, and Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) which is now extinct in all states.
Aboriginal people in Central Australia still use dingoes today, to aid their hunting.
Dingoes are natives of Asia selectively bred by humans from wolves. Dingoes were present in Australia from 3500–4000 years ago.
Pure dingoes are populations or individuals that have not yet hybridised with domestic dogs or hybrids.
Dingoes are not easily distinguished from other wild dogs and can be reliably identified only by detailed skull measurements and their genetic makeup. They breed once a year, usually in early winter.
They are typically ginger or yellow with white feet and chest, however they may be also be pure white, ginger, black and tan or pure black.
Dingoes occupy an area known as a ‘home range’, which can vary in size according to the productivity of the country—from 9 square kilometres in rain-forest areas to 300 square kilometres in the Nullabour Plain desert.
It has been estimated that 50 per cent of the dingoes in south-east Queensland, and 90─95 per cent of those in south-west and central Queensland are pure.
Hybrids include dogs resulting from the crossbreeding of a dingo and a domestic dog, and all descendants of crossbred progeny.
Feral dogs are domestic dogs that have been abandoned or have strayed and are living in a wild state in rural areas, bushland or urban environments.
Domestic dogs are all dog breeds (other than dingoes) selectively bred by humans, and kept and fed by someone. These can be pets, guard dogs, livestock guardian dogs or working dogs. Domestic dogs may also behave like wild dogs if they are not adequately controlled or are free roaming.
Free-roaming dogs are dogs that are owned by humans but not restrained, and free to travel away from their owner’s property. These domestic dogs may behave like wild dogs and can attack livestock and wildlife.
The alpha female will stop all other females in her pack from breeding.
The alpha female breeds only once a year unlike domestic dogs, which will breed twice a year and all the members of the dingo family work to feed her litter. This ensures a high survival rate of the puppies and the stable family structure keeps numbers at a level that the environment can support.
POISONING DINGOES DOES NOT WORK
When we poison the dingo packs using 1080 poison, the dingoes go berserk running around and vomiting wildly.
This vomitus is poisonous and will lead to secondary poisoning of native and non native birds and animals, 1080 is a very nasty poison.
Once the family is poisoned they will split up and all the surviving secondary females then become breeders, so poisoning has the unwanted result to those doing the poisoning in the first place, of leading to an increase in the dingo population.
This is perfectly obvious in the New England Area of NSW 1080 poison has been used on dingoes in National Parks for 60 years and despite the regular and ongoing poisoning of dingoes — the dingo population is larger than ever.
If we leave the dingo packs alone in National Parks they will stabilise their own numbers and any over population of dingoes will be much reduced.
DINGOES HELP REPAIR ENVIRONMENTS – YES, REALLY
AN INTERESTING & FOR SOME SURPRISING RESULT
In the VIDEO above:
David Pollock from Wooleen Station in WA discusses the benefits of retaining Dingoes in the landscape. Covering over a quarter of a million acres of picturesque Outback, Wooleen Station is a cattle station that is playing a leading role in preserving and sustaining the unique ecology of the region.
As apex predators, Dingoes are important in maintaining the environmental health of Australian landscapes. Increasing evidence from scientific research and from on-ground observations by land managers show that they can be valuable partners in agriculture.
Dingoes reduce over-grazing by controlling kangaroos and controlling, in some cases locally eradicating, feral herbivore pests (goats, pigs and rabbits) and carnivores (foxes and cats).
By maintaining Dingo populations on their properties, graziers will additionally benefit by a reduction in the costs, time and frustration spent in the often unsuccessful effort to control them.
It is acknowledged and recognised that for sheep and goat producers, Dingoes in a district can have severe impacts unless there are active measures – not necessarily lethal – to protect these smaller stock.
If you have dingoes on you land which are not attacking livestock then it is best to leave them alone as they will keep other dingoes and wild dogs away.
Livestock can be protected using donkeys which have an in built DNA antipathy for all canines. A pair of donkeys in the paddock will keep it free from dingoes and wild dogs.
We need your help to continue to protect precious habitats in New South Wales.
Save Our Woodlands has secured 4 significant tracks of land but funding is still needed for each.
Additionally, we are raising funds to build 4 km of wildlife-friendly fencing to keep stock out of precious and protected in perpetuity habitats of endangered and at risk species.
Save Our Woodlands is an environmentally conscious group of volunteers dedicated to preserving threatened birds, animals and ecosystems in the woodlands of New South Wales, Australia.
Only 15% of our woodlands remain, the rest has been cleared for agriculture.
Save Our Woodlands Inc. secures and protects woodlands in NSW and pays landholders, in perpetuity, to conserve, enhance and re-establish native woodlands on THEIR land, and to manage these woodlands, so they are maintained.
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