The Australian Dingo Conservation Association (ACDA) runs a 92-ha compound housing 31 pure, breeding dingoes on Colong station in the Blue Mountains National Park.
"We try hard to maintain genetic purity, so we even separate our breeding packs into sub-types, like mountain, desert and tropical dingoes," says ADCA vice-president Gavan McDowell. The association's aim is to breed a number of pure dingoes that can be released into the wild to recolonise areas cleared of feral dogs. Unfortunately, since dingoes are themselves declared animals, or pests, in most states, releasing them for recolonisation is currently illegal.
Some scientists, however, cautiously suggest the wild dog boom we have created may actually be the dingo's salvation.
"People don't always realise that a lot of hybrid dogs means a lot of pure-bred dingoes too, simply because of the numbers," says Guy Ballard, a dingo researcher with the Invasive Animals Co-operative Research Centre.
"It's impossible to prove, but I suspect there are actually more pure-bred dingoes around today than at any other time in history." Ballard's team runs several dingo-tagging projects throughout northeastern NSW, and he says that no matter where he and his fellow researchers go, they always trap some good (pure) dingoes. That's why he is uncertain of the need for breeding facilities such as that of the ADCA.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/predator-explosion-dogs-the-bush/story-e6frg6z6-1225889672128
I'd like to know what happens to the dingoes he traps.
ReplyDeleteAre they released, tagged, collared, killed or what ?.
His comment "It's impossible to prove, but I suspect there are actually more pure-bred dingoes around today than at any other time in history." I feel is a little far fetched.
More areas are being baited by that horrid 1080 and more feral dogs will obviously reduce the gene pool of the pure dingo by matings.
If we could only get rid of all the wild dogs and leave the dingo alone the environment would be a better place.
But if farmers, townies, pig shooters etc keep losing their dogs
the wild dog problem will not go away.