#dingo research

Progressive Dingo Management Strategies 

Over the next year I will be involved in a project managed by Griffith University, in collaborations with residents from two peri-urban communities with an interest in animal management and environmental conservation. ‘Peri-urban’ areas are zones that have undergone rapid urbanisation of a once remote rural environment. These particular locations are extraordinary in their concentration of dingoes (and feral domestic dogs) and the incessant conflict between community members (predominantly farmers), but also newly arrived “urban refugees” (to use the term often quoted in the workshop). 

The academics managing this project are not necessarily specialists in dingoes and invasive species, but experts in community empowerment and communication. Their expertise has been channelled to empower communities to challenge Government led and enforced management of invasive species, which all community members shared a dissatisfaction with, regardless of position regarding dingoes (and feral domestic dogs and other invasive species). While the population of dingoes is exceptionally high in these areas, they are exhibiting classic chaos behaviour in response to the traditional, exclusively lethal means to control dingoes (+ feral domestic dogs). These culls are typically controlled and enforced exclusively by local and state departments of government by means of 1080 poison baiting. All affected people – particularly farmers – have expressed concern that the impact of predatory species has continued to increase, despite a lack of monitoring and quantitive data measuring the effectiveness of current practises. Even farmers that carry out baiting are open to alternative measures of control, and the vast majority share concern for the welfare of animals that are killed by It is this projects goal to gather residents to create stratagems that reflect the diversification of values and welfare concerns of all community members. It creates and opportunity to open a forum of discussion between new and ‘old-school’ community members, reflecting their unique experiences, education and ethics. Farmers also have an opportunity to address the lack of results of these culls actually decreasing stock losses, and to voice their concerns over the rapid social change within their community. “Communities are often best-placed to take action because they have a unique and detailed understanding of the issues, challenges and opportunities in their community. A self-empowered community-led planning process can be an effective way for communities to come together to establish responses to threats to their lifestyles.” 

All parties will benefit from the guidance of the research fellows. Their specialisation in self empowered community management ensures that and the objective of valuable action, is not limited to discussion, and the power of working within a community to add merit to suggested changes in practices. The objective of this workshop is to submit an application to the revision of the Wild Dog Management Strategy (2011 – 2016) which is up for review, due to the expiry date of the most recent plan by the Queensland Dog Offensive Group. This papers’ draft is available to the public, and open to suggestions that I can put forward to the researchers, regardless of whether you are local or not. It’s a good 17 pages long, so I’ll try to make a post to link it Here if anyone would like to have a read (Just give me a little time to figure out how haha). These are the key points explored in the submission, with my own notes highlighted in italics

1.       A need to distinguish between dingos  and non-dingoes throughout the strategy. (according to the taxonomy “Canis Dingo” & phenotype and status as its own species)

2.       A need for greater community awareness, education and capacity building around wild dogs and dingoes and their management in peri-urban areas.

4.       A need to quantify actual impacts of feral dogs and dingoes in peri-urban areas to inform best management practices, as well as the need for better understanding of dingo behaviour and ecological role based on the latest science (Reference material must be peer reviewed and critically analysed).

5.       A need to consider the range of views of peri-urban residents that include, but are not limited to: the importance of dingo conservation, the appropriateness of current control methods (especially 1080 baiting)  (with regard to welfare concerns and human accountability for domestic animal husbandry), the need to understand current impacts of wild dogs, and issues of personal responsibility and pet management.

6.       A need to consider personal responsibility and preventive measures and improve residents’ compliance with relevant regulations (e.g. microchipping, desexing) (How to address undocumented and irresponsible behaviour with other methods that don’t simply rely on punishment, and provide motives for target audience?).  A need for greater transparency and sharing of information (Accuracy of information available on Gov, academic and media resources, esp. regarding species distinction) between Government and local communities, especially in relation to wild dog impacts, sighting  (With conclusive, first hand evidence of animals responsible for stock attacks – as in visual documentation of the attack, not just the aftermath. Attack could be by a range of invasive species – domestic dogs, pigs, foxes, cats, or dingoes), and management (community oriented and autonomous) outcomes in peri-urban areas.

“ Dingoes are dog-like and possess a fairly broad head, tapered muzzle, erect ears and a bushy tail (Kerr, 1792; Fig. 6). Relative to similar-sized domestic dogs, dingoes have longer and more slender muzzles. The 19th century dingoes we examined, like wolves but unlike many dogs, do not possess dewclaws on the hind legs (Ciucci et al., 2003). Dingoes can have five basic pelage colours: yellow, brown, ginger/red, black and white (Cairns, Wilton & Ballard, 2011). These colours occur in various combinations and 19th century skin specimens included animals that are entirely white (Fig. 6), entirely yellow/brown (Fig. 6), entirely black, yellow with white patches (Fig. 6), particularly at the tip of the tail and ankles (Fig. 6), and yellow with black fur along the dorsal parts of the body (sable, Fig. 6). The original specimen of C. dingo (Fig. 1) illustrated in Mazell & Phillip (1789) was uniformly brown on its dorsal surface, with the face, underparts and feet being white (Kerr, 1792). Other pre-1800 paintings included colours such as dark brown, reddish brown, and sandy with sabling (Supporting Information Figure S1).

The specimen of C. macdonnellensis (Matschie, 1915) ZMB 22418 at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, and the specimen of C. familiaris australasiae (Desmarest, 1820) at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, were both predominantly yellow with some dark fur along the dorsum (sabling).

Historical records describing dingo colours are scant, and mostly not detailed (Elledge et al., 2006). The earliest report of a dingo from 1697 is of a ‘yellow-dog’ near Jurien, Western Australia (Abbott, 2008). Collins (1798) reported dingoes in the Sydney region as ‘two colours, the one red with some white about it, and the other quite black’. Explorer Mitchell (1839) reported a ‘small black native dog’ in northern central New South Wales in 1832. Historical descriptions of dingoes from Western Australia during the period 1826–1890, compiled by Abbott (2008), include red, yellow, black, black and white, white, tan and tawny animals.

These dingoes have features that indicate possibly hybridisation, but they are all successfully living wild, follow dingo-like breeding patterns, have a distinct territory and hunt native animals (like the brindle male with the bandicoot). When I say they all show some signs of dog history, it is only slight, unlike hybrids which are in captivity as companions. The top dark sable male looks like he may be a dingo-dog for how square his muzzle is, his paws are a bit splayed, and he has quite a stocky build and lower tuck. The black dingo with the white tip is the female of this breeding pair, who live on their own and breed once per year - so they are following dingo behavioural phenotypes, even though her eyes are a bit softer and rounder than a dingo, and her ears are in a higher position.. she actually looks a tiny bit border collie-ish? The longer haired brindle is another cool tiger striped dingo, but not a very clear photo. They’ve got a huge bandicoot for dinner, and as much as the photo is terrible to judge, they seem to have a more doglike body shape, shorter legs and are much heavier set than a typical dingo (which weighs 16kg).

It’s often repeated that hybridisation is the biggest threat to dingoes as a species, but this has been addressed in the most recent paper detailing the Taxonomic status of Australian Dingoes, and confirming their place as a native canid species of Australia - entirely seperate from breeds and subspecies of dogs or wolves. 

“There are three reasons why the frequency of dingo–domestic dog hybrids might be overstated; (1) Current DNA testing methods (i.e., Stephens et al. 2015 or Wilton 2001) were designed without knowledge of the geographical, phenotypic, and genetic variation within dingoes (Cairns & Wilton 2016, Cairns et al. 2017). Thus, when comparing dingoes in southeast Australia to those in the northwest, they might appear different, and so could be falsely labelled as having dog ancestry. (2) Most studies of the genetic integrity of dingo populations have been done with the goal of establishing the distribution of dingo–domestic dog admixture, rather than of populations devoid of any dog ancestry. That is, samples used for genetic studies (e.g., Stephens et al. 2015) are biased towards animals collected (killed) from areas with high human activity and artificially abundant food resources. As a result, samples do not always reflect dingoes that do not encounter dogs. (3) There are some behavioural barriers that hinder hybridisation in canids (Hinton et al. 2018). It is difficult for a feral domestic dog to integrate and compete with a large dingo population that has a stable pack structure (Corbett 2001b). As is the case for wolf hybridisation with other Canis species (Vilà & Wayne 1999), behavioural and physiological differences make mating difficult, and hybrid offspring can exhibit lower fitness in the wild. 

For these reasons, Vilà and Wayne (1999) argued that hybridisation is not a major management concern, and that natural selection will help ensure that the behavioural sequences necessary for survival and reproduction are maintained and passed onto subsequent generations (Jones 1990). Research on dingo-domestic dog hybridisation raises the question of how the biological population of dingoes is delimited. The proposed definition of a dingo by Smith and Savolainen (2015) excludes all dingoes that have dog ancestry (as well as free-living domestic dogs with modern domestic ancestry, such as a pet dog that has escaped a farm, a hunting dog abandoned in the bush, or a village dog). 

A PhD student who led research into dingoes in the Northern Territory says it’s better ecologically to let the animals take “one or two cows here and there” than to bait them on farms.

Sydney-based University of NSW student Viyanna Leo, 32, said she has visited the Territory at least nine times over the past two years as part of her study on the effects of dingoes as ecosystem regulators in tropical systems

“I worked out in remote areas ... I spent five months in the bush on one occasion ... where I was looking at the ecological affects of dingoes as an apex predator,” Ms Leo said.

“I researched properties that eliminated dingoes with bait and compared them with properties where they didn’t bait the dingoes with poison.”

Ms Leo said her main findings, which are yet to be published, revealed that the ecological effects of dingoes were the same in arid zones as they were in tropical environments.

“When you have dingoes, kangaroos are kept at a lower level,” she said.

“Where dingoes were controlled, kangaroos were abundant, and this affects the grass because they graze a lot.

“Where dingoes weren’t controlled, they controlled the kangaroos and kept the numbers down and the eco system was more balanced.

“Dingoes also control cats.

“So everything needs a predator.”

Ms Leo said farmers invested “a lot of money in poison to control dingoes”.

“Then they invest all this other money into controlling kangaroos because all their pastures are damaged,” she said.

“Those who don’t control dingoes and allow one or two cows here and there to be taken, will have much lesser costs than those trying to constantly control dingoes.” Ms Leo said she was yet to analyse all of her data but that aspects of her research had surprised her including how important dingoes were to the ecosystem.