Will the Dingo join the Thylacine?

The last Tasmanian tiger died a lonely death in the Hobart Zoo in 1936, just 59 days after new state laws aimed at protecting it from extinction were passed in parliament.

But the warning bells about its likely demise had been pealing for several decades before that protection came too late - and today we’re making many of the same deadly mistakes, only now it’s with dingoes.

Read more at The Conversation.

Dingoes on the way out...

Dingoes are currently listed as a threatened species but if more isn't done they could disappear from parts of Australia, wildlife experts say.

Healesville sanctuary senior dingo keeper Sue Jaensch said Tuesday's coronial ruling that a dingo was responsible for the death of Azaria Chamberlain in 1980 provided an opportunity to highlight the difficulties dingoes face in the wild.

'Most of our visitors aren't aware dingoes are classified as a threatened species here in Victoria,' Ms Jaensch told AAP.

It was only in 2008 that the Victorian government recognised the dingo as a threatened species.

Before that they were recognised as a pest, Ms Jaensch said.

'Historically dingoes have been managed as pests.'

Ms Jaensch's concerns echo an article published in Australian Wildlife Secrets in May that warned if immediate action wasn't taken to protect the dingo it may go the way of the Tasmanian Tiger and become extinct.

'In recent times (dingo) numbers have declined over large areas of its former range,' the report said.

When asked if the threat of extinction was real, Ms Jaensch said: 'Definitely in parts of Australia.'

'The biggest threat to them in the wild is the interbreeding with feral dogs,' Ms Jaensch said.

'Sadly we have a growing population of wild dogs in Australia.'

Dingoes are notoriously secretive and therefore difficult to study but myths surrounding the shy canid have put its future in jeopardy.

Ms Jaensch also said their reputation as an introduced species and predator contributed to their treatment in the past.

However, as a top order predator, she likened their role to that of a lion in Africa or a tiger in Asia.

'Dingoes are a very important part to the native environment,' Ms Jaensch said.

'Recent studies have shown in areas where dingoes are found they help to control numbers of foxes and feral cats and rabbits which is great for famers because that means they've got more grass.'

http://www.skynews.com.au/eco/article.aspx?id=760398&vId=

Dingoes and Devils the answer for Australia?

A new paper to be published in the May edition of Trends in Ecology and Evolution suggests dingoes and Tasmanian devils could control invasive species, such as cats and foxes, as well as overabundant herbivores.

"We need to be quite bold and allow predators back into the landscape and see if they can reverse some of the damage we've done," said Dr Euan Ritchie, ecologist at Deakin University in Melbourne and lead author of the paper.


The abstract of the paper reads:

"Recent advances highlight the potential for predators to restore ecosystems and confer resilience against globally threatening processes, including climate change and biological invasions. However, releasing the ecological benefits of predators entails significant challenges. Here, we discuss the economic, environmental and social considerations affecting predator-driven ecological restoration programmes, and suggest approaches for reducing the undesirable impacts of predators. Because the roles of predators are context dependent, we argue for increased emphasis on predator functionality in ecosystems and less on the identities and origins of species and genotypes. We emphasise that insufficient attention is currently given to the importance of variation in the social structures and behaviours of predators in influencing the dynamics of trophic interactions. Lastly, we outline experiments specifically designed to clarify the ecological roles of predators and their potential utility in ecosystem restoration."

Read more here.

Did dingoes play a role in Thylacine extinction?

A new academic paper is out...

Impact of the dingo on the thylacine (Tasmanian Tigers)

Fillios, Melanie, Mathew S. Crowther, and Mike Letnic. 2012. “The Impact of the Dingo on the Thylacine in Holocene Australia.” World Archaeology 44 (1): 118–134.

"The thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) was one of Australia’s largest predators, but became extinct in mainland Australia soon after the arrival of a new predator, the dingo (Canis lupus dingo) around 3500 bp. Evidence implicating the dingo in the thylacine’s extinction has been equivocal, largely because thylacines are thought to be considerably larger than dingoes. Thus, other concurrent factors, such as shifts in human technology and population increase as well as climate change, have been cited to explain their extinction. Here we present new morphological evidence that female mainland Holocene thylacines were actually smaller than dingoes. We discuss these findings against archaeological and contemporary ecological evidence concerning dingoes’ environmental impacts, and provide evidence that, as novel predators, dingoes induced a trophic cascade that had dramatic impacts on the fauna and economy of Holocene Australia. We suggest that dingoes, owing to their larger brains and body size, were likely a primary agent for the extinction of the thylacine from mainland Australia."

Read more here.

Ayers Rock (Uluru) dingoes under the microscope

One of Australia's most infamous deaths - the disappearance of baby Azaria Chamberlain at Ayers Rock (now known as Uluru) - saw an innocent woman sent to jail before the real culprit, a dingo, was put firmly in the frame.

Now the events of 1980 are once again being revisited in a new inquest, to be held in February 2012.

The inquest will be the fourth into the infant's death, which drew international attention after her mother, Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, was convicted of murder in 1982 and sentenced to life imprisonment. She was later freed and the conviction quashed.

Azaria's parents have always maintained she was taken from their tent by a dingo. The case has gripped the public imagination for decades, prompting several dramatisations, including a 1988 movie starring Meryl Streep.

Wild dog numbers explode in Qld

Queensland's summer of drenching rains has led to an explosion in the state's wild dog population.

The big wet prevented regular canine culling efforts, leaving livestock and the land's biodiversity vulnerable.

Agriculture Minister Tim Mulherin on Wednesday released the Wild Dog Management Strategy, aimed at controlling wild dogs, including dingoes, dingo-hybrids and domestic dogs turned feral.

Tassie Tiger more cat than dog

New research into the bone structure and hunting habits of Thylacinus cynocephalus may make the “tiger” designation more appropriate than first thought, indicating the Tasmanian Tiger may have had more in common with cats than its popular nickname.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, explorers in Tasmania brought back tales of a strange creature that looked like a wolf with tiger-like stripes on its haunches. That animal was the thylacine. It was a marsupial, one of several mammals that raise their young in pouches, and more closely related to kangaroos and koalas than to dogs or cats.

Nonetheless, the similarities stuck, and they earned the thylacine several nicknames including “marsupial wolf” and “Tasmanian tiger”. Superficially, the dog-like features are most obvious. Its species name – cynocephalus – literally means “dog head”. In fact, its skull looks so much like that of a dog that professors at Oxford University would ask students to classify it, as a trick question in their final exams.

But the rest of the body tells a different story. After studying the thylacine’s elbow joint, Borja Figueirido and Christine Janis from Brown University think that it ambushed its prey like a cat, rather than chasing it down like a dog. It was more Tasmanian tiger than marsupial wolf.

Importantly, the researchers also hypothesised that the much-maligned dingo was the main cause of the thylacine decline in Australia, because the two species were in direct competition -- using the same hunting strategies to hunt the same prey. 

"Dingoes are a species of wolves, they are runners," study researcher Borja Figuerido of Brown University said. "If the thylacines are ambushers, the hypothesis of the extinction of the thylacine outcompeted by dingoes is less probable."

Is the bell tolling for dingoes?

This week the UK's Independent newspaper wades into the dingo debate...

Ten years ago, and nearly two decades after the infamous Lindy Chamberlain case, a boy of nine was killed by two dingoes on an island in Queensland – grim proof that Australia's native dogs do attack children. The fatal mauling of Clinton Gage, at the popular tourist destination of Fraser Island, caused national outrage and silenced those who had scorned Ms Chamberlain's claim that a dingo had snatched her baby daughter, Azaria, as they camped out at Uluru in 1980. The Queensland government took drastic steps to protect visitors, culling dozens of animals on Fraser and fencing off resorts and camping grounds.

Now critics say the clampdown has gone too far and that Fraser Island's dingoes, accustomed to scavenging in rubbish tips, are dying of starvation. Some conservationists are even warning that the animals could go the way of the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, which was hunted into oblivion in the 1930s after being blamed for livestock deaths.

'Dunes dingo' just a mangy fox

A mystery creature, dubbed the “Dunes Dingo”, has been spotted several times in recent weeks roaming the Tennyson dunes.

The Portside Messenger sent a photo Mr Finder took of the animal to the Dingo Discovery Sanctuary in Victoria, which quickly solved the mystery.
The sanctuary’s Lyn Watson said the animal appeared to be a fox suffering from mange.

“It does look on the large side (for a fox),” Ms Watson said. “The tail carriage points to fox rather than dingo. Foxes do not have control of their tails like dogs or dingoes do.”

Mange is a contagious skin disease caused by parasitic mites.

Dingo Secrets of the Blue Mountains

Somehow, just a few kilometres from the crowded streets of Sydney, a secret society of dingoes has managed to remain hidden. But what’s now being revealed about their culture and intelligence is amazing. And considering the prevailing attitude to dingoes, it’s a miracle there are any left.

The ABC's Catalyst program recorded this program in 2009.

A subspecies of the wolf, the dingo was introduced by humans to Australia around 5000 years ago, resulting in the extinction of the thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) and Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) in mainland Australia. 

The dingo is now the native top-order predatory mammal. Dingoes are omnivorous, though they primarily eat medium to large mammals such as wallabies and kangaroos. They regulate kangaroo numbers in South Australia and probably elsewhere, and help to control feral species such as cats,
pigs, goats and foxes. They live in most environments, from densely forested to cleared areas.

The dingo is listed on the IUCN red list of threatened species as vulnerable due to a 30% decrease in numbers (see IUCN 2005).

In NSW, dingo populations from Sturt NP, the coastal ranges and some coastal parks have been nominated as endangered populations under the TSC Act.

In contrast, the dingo is unprotected under the NPW Act, despite being considered a native species – a discrepancy that is yet to be resolved.

Dingoes are also a declared pest species under the Rural Lands Protection Act 1998.

Jennifer Parkhurst on Australian Story tonight

Why did a passion for dingo welfare drive one woman to break the law?

Featuring remarkable footage of the world's last pure pack of wild dogs on Fraser Island make this a must-see edition.

Tonight on Australian television, don't miss Australian Story, 'Hounded', screens Monday, February 28, 8.00pm on ABC1.

Buy Jennifer Parkhurst's new Fraser Island dingo book!

Show your support for the amazing wildlife photographer Jennifer Parkhurst - and raise awareness about the future of Fraser Island's much maligned purebred dingoes. Every self-respecting naturalist and library should grab a copy.

 

Click on the order form to make it bigger. You will need to write out your orders and send them to:

The Secretary @ Save Fraser Island Dingoes - mkrail@bigpond.net.au

 

or

Nicky at Oryx Publishing - oryxpublishing@bigpond.com

Australia's nasty secret - the species we torture

For decades tourists have swamped the picturesque shores of Fraser Island, a holiday mecca and World Heritage-listed site of exceptional beauty and home to a range of native species.
But what they see today when they visit might shock them - starving pure-bred dingoes, the victims of a bizarre approach by the Queensland Government to discourage human-animal interaction on the island following the death of a young child who was mauled by dingoes 10 years ago.

Wildlife photographer Jennifer Parkhurst paid the price for trying to help the dingoes - a species Australia can't seem to make up its mind about. On the one hand its lauded as a cultural icon and remembered as a companion of the first Australians who set foot on the continent, on the other derided as a pest and threat. But is that any excuse to torture a species?

Sydney Morning Herald journalist Frank Robson caught up with Jennifer Parkhurst recently, and what she has to say about the plight of the dingoes is heartbreaking.

Battle over the fate of Fraser Island's dingoes

January 8, 2011

Wildlife photographer Jennifer Parkhurst fell foul of the law trying to protect the island's harried inhabitants, writes Frank Robson.

Jennifer Parkhurst's war with the custodians of Fraser Island's dingoes began when she saw rangers setting traps for the harried animals atop a sand dune. It was 2003, two years after a nine-year-old boy had died in a dingo attack, and the traps were part of the Queensland government's radical crackdown on human-dingo interaction within the world-renowned national park.

Parkhurst, a wildlife photographer, approached the rangers and asked to see the traps. They were the usual cruel-looking devices, but the rangers assured her that a covering of rubber on the jaws meant the dingoes would not be hurt. Once trapped, they would be ear-tagged for identification and then released.

"So I said, 'OK, if they don't hurt, let's pop your arm in one and trigger it,'" Parkhurst says. "But they didn't go for that idea. After that, relations between me and DERM [Queensland's Department of Environment and Resource Management] got steadily worse."

Over ensuing years, rangers killed scores of "problem" dingoes and fenced off the island's residential communities and campsites to isolate the animals from humans. Signs were erected and brochures depicting dingoes as fearsome, toothy killers liable to attack at any moment were distributed, with a warning that anyone feeding them would be ordered off the island and fined up to $3000.

Cut off from their human food sources - rubbish tips, camp bins and the island residents who had fed them scraps for decades - and with their natural habitat under siege by up to 350,000 tourists a year, Fraser's native dogs, one of the purest dingo strains left in Australia, became desperate victims of Queensland's bizarre tourism-native species juggling act.

Snapshots by island residents show emaciated dingoes standing plaintively outside the communities' electrified cattle grids or dragging legs injured by the department's "harmless" traps or being "hazed" (shot at by rangers with slingshots and pellets) away from carloads of excitable backpackers. In some cases, autopsies of those killed by rangers revealed nothing in their stomachs but sand or plastic waste or grass.

"To see these beautiful animals in that condition broke my heart," Parkhurst says. "The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service [a department agency] estimates there are more than 200 dingoes on the island, but even allowing for seasonal breeding variations I think there are a lot less than that."

For years, Parkhurst, 43, travelled daily from her home at Rainbow Beach to photograph one of the island's 10 dingo packs at Hook Point, on Fraser's southern tip.

Increasingly at odds with the rangers, who suspected her of illegally feeding the pack, she was woken early on August 25, 2009, by five department officials and a policeman, who had a warrant to search her home.

Six hours later, they left, taking all her computer files about dingoes, including a book she was writing, 90 department dingo autopsy reports she had obtained through freedom-of-information searches, and her spirited analysis of the department's dingo management stuff-ups. They took her still and video footage of dingoes, her journals, field notes and even photos of "K9", her pet dog of 16 years which died not long before the raid. (Most of the material has yet to be returned.)

On November 3 last year, Parkhurst appeared in Maryborough Magistrates Court and pleaded guilty to 46 charges related to feeding and "disturbing" dingoes in the Great Sandy National Park (Fraser Island) between July 2008 and August 2009.

Pleading not guilty wasn't an option: among the videos seized was footage of her feeding members of the Hook Point dingo pack and celebrating Christmas Day 2008, with the pack and her now former boyfriend. Parkhurst is heard to say: "Three roast chickens … disappeared in seconds, but gee whiz, they loved it."

(The videos seized also contained footage shot by Parkhurst of a veteran ranger, Les Gallehawk, feeding dingoes a bucket of fish at the same location. Gallehawk was sacked and fined $300 for his action last year. "I'm not allowed to say anything about it," he said from his home. "I had to sign an agreement after I got sacked.")

She was fined $40,000 and received a nine-month jail term, suspended for three years. The magistrate, John Smith, referred to the "deliberate nature" of Parkhurst's offending, saying she had engaged in a covert campaign over a long period and had sought to hide her offending from rangers.

At her home, Parkhurst told the Herald she had been made a scapegoat for the department's flawed management of Fraser Island. She believes the harshness of her sentence was linked to her role as an activist against the government's treatment of island dingoes. "I have to take responsibility for what I did," she adds, "but I don't accept that feeding starving animals makes them dangerous. I believe if everyone was feeding them - as residents and rangers used to - they would be less of a risk to visitors, not more."

Before her court appearance, rangers killed five of the juvenile dingoes Parkhurst had fed and given names to, claiming they had become habituated and had "attacked" humans. "My actions put the spotlight on that pack, and that's what got them killed. That's what I'm remorseful about … yet I hope people can understand how horrific it was watching those animals starving. It's such a slow, cruel, horrible process."

Dingo campaigner fined $40,000, gets suspended sentence

The Queensland Government is standing by the $40,000 fine and suspended sentence given to a woman who fed dingoes on Fraser Island off the state's south-east.

In the Maryborough Magistrates court, wildlife photographer Jennifer Parkhurst from Rainbow Beach pleaded guilty to 46 counts of feeding and interfering with dingoes.

Prosecutors argued some dingoes became aggressive after she fed 17 of the animals, including six puppies, over a 13-month period.

Meanwhile her supporters have engaged a legal team to try and change the dingo management laws on Fraser Island.

Save the Fraser Island Dingoes secretary Karin Kilpatrick says many of the island's dingoes are starving and she wants the State Government to conduct an urgent wildlife study to find out if the dingoes have enough natural food sources.

Over at alternative news website SOS Newsfront, they have published a scathing attack on the judgement and posted up this document, a letter from The Wildlife Protection Association of Australia Inc's Pat O’Brien, which details the shocking state of dingoes on Fraser Island. Disturbing stuff.

Dingo centre stage for Azaria Inquest

Thirty years after the disappearance of baby Azaria Chamberlain, whose parents always claimed she was taken by a dingo, Australia is preparing a new inquest to try to resolve the question.

Azaria's mother, Lindy, was found guilty of murder in 1982. But she was later exonerated after a piece of the baby's clothing was found in an area full of dingo lairs. The inquest will examine the question of whether the baby was taken by a dingo.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11511581

Geneticist: Dingoes in danger of dying out

AWARD winning Australian geneticist and occasional Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service consultant Alan Wilton has joined criticism of Queensland Government dingo management practices on Fraser Island.

Dr Wilton’s research for the University of New South Wales proved dingoes are in danger of dying out through interbreeding in most other parts of Australia, something he says makes the pure strain on Fraser Island more significant.

He said pure strains on the east of the continent probably only exist on Fraser Island and in the Snowy Mountains.

Speaking at a recent fundraising dinner for the conservation group, Save Fraser Island Dingoes (SFID), Dr Wilton formally accepted the group’s invitation to become its patron and said the point of World Heritage listing is lost if island management does not protect wildlife there.

“The whole idea of having heritage areas is to preserve the species in those areas and that should be the priority,” he said.

He claims the mating of siblings among the island dingoes is a sign of a species in dire stress and close to extinction.

He was supported by former QPWS ranger Ray Revill, who now runs a private wildlife sanctuary at Maryborough.

Mr Revill says dingo issues did not exist in his time on the island, throughout much of the 1980s.

He said the four dingo feeding stations then on the island worked well and there was never any aggression from any of the animals.

Other speakers listed a range of other species which are now thought to have disappeared from the island.

About 200 guests included Butchulla elder Marie Wilkiinson, Gubbi Gubbi elder Eve Fesl, Hervey Bay MP Ted Sorensen and Federal Hinkler MP Paul Neville, who accused the government of being “oblivious to public opinion.”

SFID president Malcolm Kilpatrick said the organisation’s major funding priority at the moment is to support Rainbow Beach wildlife photographer Jennifer Parkhurst, who is due to appear in court again in November on a list of charges alleging feeding and interacting with dingoes on the island.

http://www.gympietimes.com.au/story/2010/09/30/experts-reject-govt-dingo-claim/

Can you imagine Australia without the dingo? http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1335391.htm

Govt defends raid on Dingo campaigner's house

NOOSA: Dingo protection campaigner Jennifer Parkhurst will plead not guilty to more than 40 criminal charges when she fronts court on September 9.

Ms Parkhurst, a vocal lobbyist for greater protection of Fraser Island dingoes, this week broke her silence over the trial, which comes almost a year after state government officials raided her Rainbow Beach home seizing photos, computers, journals and cameras.

Noosa MP and opposition environment spokesman Glen Elmes and a group of Noosa locals continue to support her cause.

The Department of Environment and Resource Management allege the wildlife photographer and Save Fraser Island Dingoes Association member interfered with and fed dingoes on the World Heritage listed sand island over a 13-month period.

If found guilty she faces fines of up to $300,000 or two years’ imprisonment.

Ms Parkhurst told The Noosa Journal this week efforts to have her trial adjourned to allow her defence counsel time to review five folders of prosecution material had been unsuccessful.

"As it stands they’ve set the trial date for September 9, which gives us less than a couple of months to go through their case, which they’ve compiled over eight months with a team of up to five people," she said.

Ms Parkhurst said she lost a member of her counsel after Legal Aid was denied, however Noosa-based Ocean Legal this week confirmed it had joined Ms Parkhurst’s defence after reading about her case in The Noosa Journal.

Kristy Crabb, Barrister of Sunshine Coast Barrister’s Chambers Maroochydore, has also joined her defence, Ocean Legal spokeswoman Marilyn Nuske confirmed.

Ms Parkhurst’s Melbourne-based father’s attempt to re-mortgage his house to fund his daughter’s defence had been unsuccessful, but letters of support arrived daily.

"Not a day goes by that I don’t hear from people telling me to keep up the fight,’’ she said. "I’m so humbled. These are people I don’t even know, and I’m so grateful to have so much support.

"There have been times when I just burst into tears.

"Emails are still coming in from people from all spheres of life even little old ladies.’‘

A book on Ms Parkhurst’s Fraser Island dingo research has been canned due to legal concerns and she said she had lost seven years worth of work seized in the raid.

The case and her concerns about the island, first reported by The Noosa Journal last year, have made national headlines.

Ms Parkhurst has won widespread support from wildlife groups, Aboriginal elders, Noosa locals, civil libertarian lawyer Terry O’Gorman and MP Glen Elmes who previously described the raid on her home as "Gestapo tactics".

http://noosa-journal.whereilive.com.au/news/story/supporters-keep-dingo-campaigners-hopes-alive/

Check out the Save the Fraser Island Dingoes page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=102445695086

Plight of the Dingo

We were impressed with Australian Alison Oborn's dedication to the preservation of the dingo, Australia's own (albeit imported) wild dog. Here's a piece she wrote challenging the argument that the dingo should be exterminated:

"The dingo isn't native to Australia and only arrived here 3500-4500 years ago. ­ It is just a mongrel dog from Asia and we should just kill the whole bloody lot.

I often hear and read this stance used as an argument as to why the dingo should have no place here on Australian shores and should in fact be kept on the vermin list. It is very effective in convincing the average person that this animal is feral and non native to Australia and so should be classified in the newly arrived feral category such as the fox, the cat and the rabbit.

It is used time and time again in the belief that it will help their cause to eradicate this ecologically important animal, and many do actually accept this without putting too much thought into just how long 4000 years really is in the time line.

Let me help put this into perspective for you - let's take a brief look at history.

We will start at approximately 4000 years ago when the dingo was thought to have first arrived on our shores:·

• The Sumerians were still in existence, although about to disappear as recognisable people after being over run by the Amorites.
• Babylon existed and was heavily into agriculture·
• Troy was also in existence.·
• The Sahara desert was still fertile and green.·
• The wheel was just being introduced, especially on the Egyptian chariots. ·
• Although metal was being introduced for tools in certain circles and areas, the average person was still using stone tools.
• During the dingo's first 1000 years here in Australia, great names such as Confucius, King Solomon, Homer, Pythagoras, Ramses II were living out their lives around the world.
• During the next thousand years the likes of Socrates and Plato and Alexander the Great were now living out their lives too.
• The dingo had already been in Australia approx 1500-2000 years when Stonehenge was being built in the UK, when Sparta (yes, that nation featured in the movie 300) was still strong and the Roman Empire was contemplating expansion.

I could point out many more events that give you an idea of just how long the dingo really has been Australian, but I think you will be starting to understand the reality of how ludicrous this non-native argument is by now.

These animals have been on our shores a long time and have certainly had plenty of time to adapt and become an integral part of the ecosystem. Studies show that they keep the ecosystem healthy and to lose our apex predator would impact greatly on this fragile land.

Some elements of the farming community will also have us believe that these dingoes are responsible for the 20 native species of fauna that have disappeared off our shores over the last 200 years or so. They would have you believe that the dingo is munching it's way relentlessly through our wildlife and so is a scourge to the nation.

The question I would be asking these people is how come this has only become a major problem in the last 200 years or so and not for the prior 4000 years before that?

Why is it that this appalling extinction rate seems to coincide with the arrival of white Europeans to this shore, who brought with them European farming practices, which were never sustainable or suitable for such an ancient and fragile continent.

I will finish with one more important event to remember to bring things into true perspective, our dingo had already been trotting round and adapting to our Australian bush for approximately 2000 years before the most famous name known to the western world was born in Bethlehem.

Yes...our dingo was well established here in our ecosystem when Jesus Christ was born and true Christianity as we know it began.

Surely after all this time, the dingo has earned a title of Australian Native and not the 'feral pest' that it has at the moment.

Maybe instead of driving yet another mammalian species into extinction, we should be finding a middle ground with the agricultural industry and the environmentalists and put these wrongs right and save this magnificent species before all we are left with are photos and the condemnation of future generations."

Well said Alison!

Visit her Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Plight-of-the-Dingo/394141060082?ref=ts&v=wall

You can also read an enlightening article about how the dingo may be helping to save other Australian native animals here: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/1450/dingo-may-save-australian-wildlife

And another thing - look how smart they are! http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2010/s2928438.htm

On a final note - guess what dog breed features a dingo in its lineage? The Red and Blue Heeler (also known as the Australian Cattle Dog)! By crossing native Dingoes with Collies and other herding dogs, Australian George Elliott developed the Red Heeler, also known as the Australian Cattle Dog, in 1840. Farmers were impressed with the breed’s toughness and work ethic, and they quickly became popular as cattle herders. Red and Blue Heelers continue to be popular today among farmers and pet owners, who value their intelligence and companionship.

Dingo purity aided by wild dog explosion

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