"What the Dingo Tells Us"
(The Age, May 5, 2001 Geoff Strong)

"Archeological records show that dogs have been either companions of humans, such as living around human encampments, for at least 100,000 years. This is exactly the behaviour of the so-called rogue dingoes on Fraser Island, which hang around camping grounds.
In Australia since the European conquest, the dingo has occupied a special place in our fears. Other perceived threats to the European sense of comfort have been dealt with similarly:
The Thylacine in Tasmania was hunted to extinction. Aborigines were driven from their tribal land;
Now suburban possums are eradicated for getting into ceilings, cockies for their taste in imported weather boards and the magpies for territorial aggression during mating...
Peter Beattie has chosen a populist, gun-toting solution. There are an estimated 160-200 dingoes, yet the gut reaction is to cull them because they say there are too many.
By my reckoning, the imbalance of numbers, is in the other direction."

" A campaign to save this island from the ravages of sand mining, as then proposed by the Bjelke-Petersen Government was to save all of the island's ecosystem, including the dingoes, which in the mainland were hybridising to oblivion with feral dogs." ( Geoff Strong )

The following is a letter from Animals Australia to the Minister for the Environment nominating the Dingo as a threatened species.

18 July 2001

Senator the Hon. Robert Hill
Minister for the Environment and Heritage
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2000

Dear Senator Hill,

Nomination of the Dingo as a threatened species

The recent slaughter of a very large number of one of the last genetically pure populations of dingoes in Australia (on Fraser Island) has prompted an overwhelming call by our member organisations to press for better protection for dingoes, both from acts of State-sanctioned cruelty and from the extreme and urgent threat of extinction.

You will be aware that there is currently no national mechanism of protecting animals from cruelty. Animal welfare is wholly the responsibility of State Governments. As I am sure you are also aware, many of the State/Territory animal welfare/prevention of cruelty to animal Acts remain appallingly inadequate in terms of their protection of animals which compete for resources that are also valued by humans.

Dingoes are a unique and wholly native breed of domestic dog, but they currently receive virtually no protection, either from cruelty under animal welfare legislation (because they are perceived to be 'pests'), or from extinction under environmental legislation-presumably because they are a breed rather than a species.

Dingoes have suffered extreme persecution since most of them were forced to become wild animals by the extermination of so many of their companion humans during the early years of European settlement of Australia. The impact of this persecution has been exacerbated by interbreeding with introduced dog breeds, which has diluted the gene pool. Only on a few offshore islands, such as Fraser Island and in extremely remote areas of the mainland, is the breed still genetically pure. Consequently, this ancient and extraordinary beautiful canid is likely to disappear off the face of the Earth within the first decade of the 21st Century.

Although a domestic dog, rather than a wholly wild animal, the dingo is believed to have been in the Australian ecosystem for around 40 thousand years. Aside from it's own intrinsic value as the world's oldest surviving domestic dog, the dingo's role in the ecosystem, as the continent's only large land predator (other than humans) is likely to be extremely significant. Although this role has received little attention and is poorly understood, the precautionary principle demands that this animal should be protected at least until we have a better understanding of how the various anthropogenic changes to the ecosystems of the continent over the last two hundred years have altered the crucial predator/prey relationships within those ecosystems.

We understand that the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 2000 (clause 191) allows for any person to nominate a threatened species for listing under the Act. We also understand that there are precedents for the inclusion of sub-species in the list of endangered and vulnerable species under the Act.

On behalf of Animals Australia, I therefore formally nominate the dingo as a threatened (sub) species under the EPBC Act.

Nomination of the Dingo as a threatened species

I would also like to draw to your attention Australia's obligations under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. The Convention defines biodiversity as including variations within species and biological resources and as including genetic resources (Preamble). It obligates participating governments to:

• manage biological resources important for the conservation of biodiversity with a view to ensuring their conservation (Article 8c);
• promote maintenance of viable populations in natural surroundings (Article 8d); and
• develop and maintain necessary legislation/regulation for the protection of threatened species and populations (Article 8k).

We would be grateful for your advice on any further steps we need to take to support our nomination of the Australian dingo as a threatened sub-species. We also urge you to take every other possible action within your power to protect the Asutralian dingo from persecution, cruelty and extinction.

Yours sincerely

Glenys Oogjes
Executive Director

As a Member Group of Animals Australia, we fully support this initiative by the Director Glenys Oogjes to have the dingo listed as a threatened sub-species and urge all to write to the Minister.