[Level Up] [Doc Top] [Doc End] [Next Item] [Home Page]

CSIRO CORPORATE MEDIA RELEASE 95/68

NO MORE YELLOW DOG DINGO?

The dingo, Australia's only native dog, could be extinct within the next 50 to 100 years. But it is not poisoning, shooting or trapping which directly threatens the dingo, rather the dingo's ability to cross breed, or hybridise, with domestic dogs.

World dingo expert, Dr Laurie Corbett, from the CSIRO's Division of Wildlife and Ecology in Darwin, says the dingo's gene pool is being swamped by feral and domestic dogs.

At the launch of his book, The Dingo in Australia and Asia, last Friday at the Fowlers Gap Arid Zone Research Station, near Broken Hill in outback New South Wales, Dr Corbett said that only about half of the wild dogs in eastern Australia were pure dingoes. "Dingoes are being bred out of existence in Australia at an alarming rate but there is still a pure dingo population in the north and there is a chance to protect what's left", he said.

The Dingo in Australia and Asia covers virtually anything anyone would want to know about dingoes. It draws on research carried out in South East Asia and across Australia, from Gippsland in Victoria to the Pilbara in Western Australia, and to Kakadu in the Northern Territory.

Dingoes are a subspecies of wolf (Canis lupus dingo) and evolved on the Asian mainland where they are common today, especially in Thailand. Asian seafarers transported dingoes to virtually all the tropical world, including Australia, some 3,500-4,000 years ago. After dingoes colonised the Australian mainland, they are believed to have contributed to the demise of the thylacine and other native wildlife. Aborigines also learnt to use dingoes to hunt for animals such as kangaroos, wallabies and possums.

In his new book, Dr Corbett argues that although dingoes have harassed livestock since the early days of European settlement, research indicates that understanding dingo predation can maximise cattle production and minimise pasture damage by rabbits. Dr Corbett believes that if the dingo is to survive, it has to be recognised as a native Australian species. "The next step is addressing the problem of crossbreeding with domestic dogs. This could involve banning dingoes from being kept as pets, and sterilisation of dogs kept by outback stations, mining town residents and Aborigines in remote areas," he said.

More information from:

[The Dingo in Australia and Asia - University of NSW Press - $24.95]

[Level Up] [Doc Top] [Doc End] [Next Item] [Home Page]