There’s been a long-standing debate over whether dingoes started out wild or domesticated. One thing is clear – they had a close relationship with First Peoples.
Loukas Koungoulos, Amy Way, Rebecca Jones and David Doyle excavating the dingo burial. Photo
Barb Quayle
It’s time to reconsider our relationship with the dingo. By collaborating and drawing from both Indigenous and Western knowledge, we can find ways to live in harmony with our apex land predator.
Dingoes are not wild dogs, research reveals. Most of the 307 wild animals sampled in this study were pure dingo. Australia’s apex predator deserves our respect after thousands of years on this land.
African wild dog with pups.
Manoj Shah/GettyImages
There is a myth that dingoes are extinct and wild dogs are all that remain in Australia. Our results show dingoes in New South Wales persist despite some mixing with domestic dogs.
An example of a typical dingo. Photograph depicts a male from K’gari-Fraser Island (Queensland).
John Williams
Of all Australia’s wildlife, one stands out as having an identity crisis: the dingo. New research has found the dingo is its own species, distinct from ‘wild dogs’.
Wild leopards in the Indian city of Mumbai may be helping to save people’s lives.
Steve Winter/National Geographic
Wild leopards that live in an Indian city park like to dine on stray dogs, which new research says may help reduce the number of potentially deadly dog bites on people.
A feral dog chasing a wild boar, Banni grasslands, India.
Chetan Misher/Facebook
Cats have a bad reputation as wildlife killers (deservedly so). But dogs aren’t off the hook: new research shows domestic dogs have contributed to the extinction of at least 11 species.
Dingoes play an important role in our ecosystems.
Angus Emmott
Does dingo control harm Australia’s environment? Results from the largest Australian experiment on dingoes – published this week in Frontiers in Zoology – shows the answer to that question is a convincing…
A dingo in the wild.
Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre
Dingoes are back in the news, with Prime Minister Tony Abbott raising concerns on ABC radio last week about dingoes in drought-hit areas of Queensland and New South Wales: I’d learnt some years ago on…
A free-ranging (dingo-like) dog in Kakadu National Park.
John Tracey
On a stop-over in Thailand, CSIRO scientist Laurie Corbett noticed some familiar-looking, ginger dogs wandering the streets. This encounter set him thinking about the origins of Australia’s dingoes, a…
These foxes are worth $10 each when killed and scalped, is it really worthwhile in controlling fox numbers, and is $10 worth the effort?
David Peacock
The Victorian government has introduced bounties for foxes and wild dogs, $10 for the scalp of a fox, and $50 for that of a dog. Bounties have been tried before, and failed to control these pests, but…
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University