Culling dingoes

Not being classed as native Australian animals doesn’t help their survival.
Early farming / grazing needs probably had an impact of govco policy towards this classification.

I think if the right 2 animals were euthanised then it had to be done, taking the tourists out of Fraser isn’t going to happen and the dogs got a taste of their sometimes superiority in some situations there (kids and the more vulnerable).

Other then media reports i’ve heard it’s hard to know the real details of what actually occurred....but it always astounds me when i’m on the island how some parents let thier kids wander around away from adults with the wild dogs / dingos there...bet they wouldn’t do that in Africa with the wild dogs they have in thier game parks.

There's no easy answer. As a kid in the 70's, when forestry ran the island the dingos scavenged open dumps, fishing leftovers and brumby carcasses (they got sand cholic and had high mortality rates). We were lucky to see them, but heard them at night howling.
QNPWS took over and the dingo's way of life changed quickly. Throughout the 80's locals would remember them becoming dangerous pests around the Orchid Beach trading post and around Eurong from people feeding them.
These days it is more about the mentality of young tourists who just want to get their instagram photo and have zero respect for the bigger picture. I would love to know how the interaction occurred, but I reckon I can guess. Anyone who has also camped at Trial Bay - South West Rocks over the years will acknowledge the roos there are becoming pushy which will result in injuries - again due to people feeding them for a picture.
The dingos (officially neither dog nor wolf) are certainly a victim of poor overall management, and larger tourist numbers - I do not purport to have any answers though. There is a proposal to fence off Sandy cape and leave them up there but I don't see that as feasible.

Danna
Not sure if you eat meat or not,mot australians do and other countries we supply food to also do. Seeing you have travelled a bit, in outback Australia there are landholders who raise cattle in thousands of square kilometres of country. At one station which I visit, just 1, at calving time the landholder can potentially incur a $300,000 loss of (calves which grow into saleable beasts) in just one week, 7 days, because of dingo pack attacks. Like most wild animals they know their territory and beyond and although scarce and often unseen, they arrive from many many kilometres away, and form a pack which start killing.
The dingo when in a pack, once killing begins on freshly born calves, the dingo packs keep killing and killing and killing, until all the newborn calves they can find in that area are dead.
The dingo's are not doing this for food as a couple of calves would satisfy many dingo's. I have seen 20 or so newborns claves freshly killed the night before. The dingo then says, wait until nighfall and we can do it again, and again, and again. If left to continue the breeder will have NO calves survive each year.
Let us have some empathy for the calves, the cattle and the beef producer too.
The landholder tries very hard to look after the herd. I have seen the effor they put in. You wouldn't even survive living there, let alone running a business.
They don't want to eliminate the dingo, they know the natural balance of where they run cattle and accept some loss as normal. Sometime the balance gets out of whack and some dingo's have to be removed. You mentioned 1080. Maybe that is why it is in some places. It is not everwhere though.

I know it is virtually impossible to argue with an animal liberationist.

You say you only saw 4 dingoes in the desert on the bomb roads. I bet a hell of a lot more dingoes saw you. You say in very bad condition. Dingoes don’t go to the doggie wash like city dogs. A lean dingo is a healthy dingo. ( how is a big fat dingo going to run down a meal ?


Have you seen a LIVE calf being eaten by a dingo ? Where does a dingo start eating a calf ? From its arse. I have seen this. And you think 1080 is cruel.

18 three month trips in the bush and your an expert on dingoes. LOL. I’ve lived and worked most of my life in dingo country. They are not the cute n cuddly puppy dog you are making out. They are a very very efficient killing machine.

Cheers greg

Anyone made a call to Lindy Chamberlain for an opinion.

It is legal to keep Dingoes as pets in NSW.

I have met 2 , one just recently at the dog beach.

To me they are very like the Kampong dog that I had in Malaysia and share many traits. My dog was very aggressive towards snakes , killing 13 Cobras in our yard while we were there and also killed a Mongoose which was a pretty good effort. She used to lick our Rottweiler in the mouth which I understand is also a Dingo trait towards superior dogs.

I have found the pet Dingoes to be similar. The bitches do not like to be touched around their hindquarters, they are quite selective on who they will approach and are quite shy. The woman who owned the second dingo stated she had to keep it on a leash more because of people's fear than reality. The dingo played with my daughters whippets well with no animosity.

Wild dogs are just as bad as dingoes in the bush and I understand even more "thrill Killers" than dingoes.

Of Course many pet dingoes are returned , or put down because they love a chicken, as do foxes.
With regard to feeding, I believe that this creates unsustainable populations who then depend on tourists. The mother of my nephew's wife lived at Happy Valley and used to feed a dozen of them until forced to stop by National Parks under threat of heavy fines.
I have seen bad behavior towards Dingoes on Fraser. People kicking sand in their faces when they approach for food. I recall one incident when I saw a couple of children approach some pups near the ferry landing with the mother dingo in the background. The next day there was a report of children being bitten. I don't know if it was the same incident but it was likely and stupid.

Regards Philip A

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Danna,

You say that in "17500km’s travel" on desert roads you have only seen "4 dingos".
I can only suggest that you should use a lighter shade of tint on your car windows.
Every year I travel on those roads and could not keep count of the number of dingos I see. Believe me, they are out there aplenty. But yes, the density is higher on Fraser Island.

The investigations, studies, debates, proposals, conservation strategies, and arguments regarding the dingos of Fraser Island have been going on for many decades. There are more "experts" on dingos than there are visitors to the island. You may do well to research some of this published information before proposing your somewhat unusual ideas publicly.
If you feel very compassionate toward dingos then perhaps join one of the dingo welfare groups such as the Australian Dingo Foundation.

I believe that many Fraser Island visitors would not even understand the relevance of a "wolf" any more than that of a "dingo". But even so, we cannot just rename an animal simply to draw attention to it. Perhaps you could consider ways to get visitors to read and heed the advice on the many visitation websites and erected signs.

These days you are more likely to be encountering ‘wild dogs’ rather than full blood dingoes, but maybe that is splitting hairs.

I suspect Fraser Island is different in that many (most?) are pure dingoes due to their isolation over a long period.

But call them whatever you like, just recognise that wild animals are just that and require respect and should be kept at a distance.

Fraser Island has plenty of warnings and tragically a history of injury and death inflicted by them.

Should ‘rogue’ dingoes on Fraser be euthanised? I guess the answer to that lies in the approach taken with domestic dogs that have inflicted serious injury, whether that is the right approach will most likely polarise people.

But the pragmatist in me says that on Fraser the tourist dollar will carry far greater weight than the ‘rights’ of the dingo...

Cheers, Baz - The Landy

I am all for dangerous animals being reminded who the peak predator is.
In the natural balance of things, generally only food/water supply serves as a natural brake on animal populations.
Unless we send a firm message, in the only language the animal understands, there will always be incidents of this nature.
We had a crack at removing the brumbies didn't we?

A year or so ago I spent 2-3 days with a mate at Seal Rocks NSW, and each morning we set out on our early morning walk (~ 7am) through the bush to the southern end of Lighthouse Beach and then return along the beach itself.

Within a minute of stepping onto the beach a pack of 3 dingoes popped out onto the beach and stayed about 100m behind us all the way to the northern end whereupon they returned to the bush.

They didn't threaten or attack but my pal told me that when he does the walk on his own they come to within 30-50m and so he usually carries a hunk of wood as a persuader, thankfully never actually needed.

They have a reputation for being "cowardly" so it does pay to be "alert if not alarmed".

I think it's a bad idea for rangers to be feeding dingos....completely stupid in fact. I also think that we have to trust the same rangers to act responsibly in protecting both dingos and dumb arse tourists. If a few dingos are going rogue, then perhaps they need putting down. The rangers are in no way suggesting that all dingos on the island need to be killed. Calling them wolves is also a dumb idea.
Knowing rangers as I do, I'll wager the decision to kill a few problem animals was not taken lightly or with any enjoyment.

Further to MichaelH9’s comment about feeding dingoes

If they are fed then they will artificially thrive and breed , reaching what sort of population??

Danna,
you need to have a really good think about how the dingo population on Fraser Island needs to be managed.
So far what I have read , you are not realistic. And the fact that , I think no one is agreeing with you should point to you being probably WRONG!

When I was first visiting Fraser Island, in the mid 1980's, there was not a Dingo to be seen anywhere. This was a time when the island was approximately 50% Forestry and 50% National Parks managed, and there were Brumbies on the island.

I, and my family, visited Fraser Island generally 2 or 3 times a year during the 80's and 90's, and I can only recall one occasion seeing any Dingo's on a track prior to about 2000, and that was on the track that is now the out road from Lake McKenzie. It was equally as rare to see any Dingos on the beach.

As a result of the activities of the FIDO (Fraser Island Defenders Organisation) group the island was transferred to National Parks management, and in true National Parks practice they proceeded to remove anything that was not native to the area, and so the Brumbies had to go. This is when the Dingo's started to multiply, as they no longer had any predator to contend with. The Dingos also controlled the Brumby numbers, so each kept the other in balance.

ANY artificial feeding, be it by the tourists or by National Parks Rangers, will further interfere with the natural checks and balances that normally control any wild animal population.

Regards
Athol

Danna
If you are 18, then you are just, possibly just coming out of school where indoctrination of students to skewed ways of thinking is utilized to brainwash the young and get them to think like many teachers/activists and uni lecturers do. They have agendas, not sensible, wholesome or ecologically balanced. Warped viewpoints and often extremism is often used on the young. If it wasn't, then most activists wouldn't have a cause to pursue.
Are you a product of this sort of mind bending?
Reading, learning from all sources and especially observation of real life will see a normal mind then believe reality.

Hi Danna,
Thanks for posting your feelings about this issue and for making your own suggestions and sparking debate. As you can see just from our audience response, the issue is rather complex and won't be fixed easily.

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Hello

Something I didnt know but culling of dingoes on Fraser Island appears to be a common occurence and part of their ongoing "management"...(e.g. "A total of 110 dingoes were destroyed between 2001 and 2013")

Allen, B. L., Higginbottom, K., Bracks, J. H., Davies, N., and Baxter, G. S. (2015). Balancing dingo conservation with human safety on Fraser Island: the numerical and demographic effects of humane destruction of dingoes. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management 22, 197–215.


Abstract

"Australian dingoes are threatened by interbreeding with domestic dogs. As a refuge from further interbreeding, the conservation significance of dingoes on Fraser Island is unquestioned. However, some dingoes presenting genuine human safety risks are humanely destroyed. In this study, we explore the potential effects of this on the sustainability of the island's dingo population. Dingo abundance was 76–171 adult individuals during the mating (pre-whelping) season of 2012. A total of 110 dingoes were destroyed between 2001 and 2013. Approximately 66 per cent of known-age dingoes destroyed were <18 months old and 65 per cent of known-gender dingoes destroyed were male. In any given year, no more than four female dingoes of any age were destroyed during dingoes' annual mating and whelping seasons. On only one occasion was an adult (and subordinate) female dingo destroyed during this period. Available data therefore indicate that the spatially and temporally variable removal of so few female and/or adult animals from a population of this size is highly unlikely to have adverse effects on dingo population growth rates or breeding success. Adverse effects of humane destructions might be expected to increase if a substantially greater proportion of adult and/or female dingoes are targeted for destruction in the future."

Cheers
Greg

It seems that may be dingo's, foxes are actually more cunning than smart for a good reason because they get into killing frenzies and deplete their area of a sustainable food sorce where as crocs for example look after theirs.

So then they have to be more mobile with the exception of Fraser where the food comes to them either by idiots handing out scraps or making a target of themself. In some cases both are to be blamed but once they think they can take down large prey (humans) you won't stop them trying again.

As far as them being classed as native for purposes of potecting them no because then some less educated do gooder will want all other introduced species to have that right in time like cane toads, rabbits, foxes etc.

Well done gentlemen. It seems you've driven away a contributor who's been on here since 2012 or thereabouts. Hope you're proud of yourselves.

Regards

As a result of Danna deleting their profile today, I am going to lock this post now.