Scientists are calling on governments to end baiting programs targeting dingoes in national parks, to ditch the “inappropriate and misleading” term “wild dog”, and to proactively engage with Indigenous Australians regarding dingo management.
Dozens of scientists have written to the New South Wales, Victorian and South Australian environment and agriculture ministers to push for changes to dingo policies in light of new scientific research.
Dr Kylie Cairns, a conservation biologist at the University of New South Wales and a key signatory of the letters, said government policy was out of step with the latest research on dingoes in Australia.
A study she led, published in May, found that most canids in Australia are pure dingoes and that dingo-dog hybridisation is rare. Dingoes are classified as native species in all jurisdictions on the Australian mainland.
“It’s just not acceptable for a native species to be … killed in the manner that we’re doing in national parks – and that is happening pretty much all across the country,” Cairns said. “There is no other native animal that is managed the way dingoes are in Australia.”
The letter to the NSW government details “extensive lethal control activities including aerial baiting, ground baiting, aerial shooting, ground shooting and trapping being carried out across national parks and conservation areas for the management of ‘wild dogs’”.
“A lot of people think that dingoes are different from ‘wild dogs’ when the government use of the term includes dingoes,” Cairns said.
“The terminology ‘wild dogs’ has been adopted because of concern that there’s a lot of hybridisation going on in populations. But the science is now saying: we don’t actually have that many of those mixed animals, there are basically no feral dogs and there are very few hybrids that have very little dingo ancestry.
“We need to change the terminology so that it’s clear and transparent what animals are being targeted for lethal control in different areas, and also so that we can have a more open discussion about how we’re going to balance the protection of a native species [with] managing them in places where they may be causing issues for agriculture.”
In Victoria, dingoes are a listed threatened species, but there are baiting and trapping programs for “wild dogs”. Dingoes are not protected on private land and some public land within 3km of a private boundary.
“It’s quite frankly absurd that within Victoria one arm of government recognises and protects the dingo as a listed threatened species and another is actively promoting and funding their destruction through schemes such as the misleadingly named ‘wild dog’ bounty,” said Euan Ritchie, a professor in wildlife ecology and conservation at Deakin University and one of the letters’ signatories.
In Victoria, now-outdated methods had suggested that pure dingoes made up as little as 4-18% of the dingo population. However, newer analysis has found that 87.1% of animals are pure.
“Where these native apex predators are more common and abundant, there are typically far fewer or no feral goats, and smaller populations of kangaroos, wallabies and emus and in some cases feral pigs too,” Ritchie said. “Dingoes can also kill and deter foxes and feral cats.
“Overall, this reduces overgrazing of vegetation, as well as the predation of smaller native animals, helping to maintain healthier ecosystems and conserve biodiversity.
“While dingoes can pose a risk to livestock, we must also recognise the risk that their ongoing persecution represents both ecologically and culturally, especially for many First Nations peoples.”
The letters come as people of the Wotjobaluk Nations in Victoria have called on the state government to stop all measures that result in the killing and persecution of dingoes.
“We, the people of the Wotjobaluk Nations, have had an immensely strong cultural and spiritual connection to wilkerr (dingo) for thousands of years, and it is part of our living cultural heritage,” they said a statement endorsed at a cultural gathering event in June.
“Don’t wait until it is too late and they disappear through your neglect. We do not give you permission to kill wilkerr and we never did.”
