![]() They are extremely wary and have great eyesight, smell and hearing. The outdoorsman who likes to hunt can provide a valuable service to the grazing industry in taking up the challenge to stalk wild dogs. Personally, while understanding the need, I abhor poison and do not like traps much either. I have a great fondness for dogs, in all their manifested shapes and sizes. Plus, I accept that wild canines are now a part of the ecological balance, particularly given that any equivalent native Australian apex predators have become extinct.Ĭlearly, especially given the damage done to livestock, there is a need to control wild dogs. Please do not think I am calling for the extermination of dingos and wild dogs. However, let us accept that the jury is still out on that one and not make anything more of it. I know of a number of farmers, hunters and bush walkers who have had very alarming encounters with packs of wild dogs. There is some evidence, and a lot of suspicion, that a number of missing bush walkers may have been actually killed, rather than just found and eaten, by packs of wild dogs. The question of what actually is a dingo is problematic. The term wild dog is more apt because there are a lot of feral dogs directly descended from European domestic dogs and, of course, lots of hybrids as well. There are some large and aggressive packs of wild dogs roaming the wilderness, sometimes in and around the fringes of suburbia as well. Long before poor little Azaria was killed by a dingo at Ayr’s Rock it was common knowledge amongst aboriginal people that dingoes would kill babies, if given an opportunity. Family friends who raised their children in a very wild and remote area of far north Queensland were warned by the local aboriginal women to keep a very close eye on their babes and toddlers, especially during the dry season. The death of Azaria Chamberlain was, and continues to be, much publicised. There have been a number of deaths attributed to wild dogs. The problem is not limited to stock either. This is a real problem for graziers and farmers who are suffering increasing losses of stock to a growing wild dog population. The warm and fuzzy set, impervious as always to scientific reality, consider dingoes a native animal and are pushing for federal protection. Partly in response to that pressure and also due to funding problems, many state governments and shires have ceased funding wild dog control. The aboriginal people that migrated down from Asia during an epoch of much lower sea levels, starting about 50,000 years ago, brought dingos and dogs with them. Wild dogs were introduced to Australia in the (geologically) recent past. ![]()
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