Dingoes to be used to control pests in country Victoria

An environmental group plans to reintroduce dingoes into a Victorian wildlife reserve to work as a form of pest control, and says if the project is successful it could be rolled out across Australia.

The Working Dingoes Saving Wildlife project is a collaboration between Aus Eco Solutions and the Australian Dingo Foundation.

The project, the first of its kind in Australia, was initially conceived as an alternative to poisoning and trapping feral animals.

Two dingoes will be released into the Eynesbury forest, northwest of Melbourne, in the hope that they will go on to eradicate the foxes, cats and rabbits living in the area.

Zoologist and Aus Eco Solutions field coordinator Shakira Todd manages the reserve, which is surrounded by large areas of developed and cleared farmland.

Todd told the ABC “it's a bit of an island (so) by putting up predator-proof fencing we aim … to suppress the pest animals."

Success will depend on whether native grasses and birds increase, and foxes, cats and rabbits are eradicated.

Todd said if the project works, it could be replicated elsewhere in Australia, adding “to have little dingo reserves around Australia, conservation areas which are threatened, would definitely be viable options in the future.

"And it's really what we hope, that this pilot study will be able to try and get that idea out there as an alternative to trying to eradicate pests by baiting and other methods."

Todd said the project had been supported by local landholders, and a two-metre-tall fence would prevent the two dingoes from escaping.

She continued “inside that 10-hectare fence area will be another enclosure, where they'll be housed the majority of the time, and then they'll be let out to exercise in that (larger) area.

"That 10-hectare area perimeter will be (surrounded) by three-metre high fences with dig-proof skirting … that fence line will be checked by my volunteers to ensure there hasn't been any breaches to the perimeter, to minimise any dingo escapes, so there will be no threat to neighbouring livestock."

However, Gerald Leach from the Victorian Farmers Federation said he was sceptical about the project.

Leach told the ABC “what is the objective of this project?

"If the objective is to demonstrate that the dingoes will control the foxes and other predators, such as wild cats, is it really going to be able to be extrapolated onto a much broader scale?

"That's why we're sceptical, because we don't think that a very small scale project like this will necessarily prove anything."

Leach said that he could not see how it would work on a large scale, adding “once you get onto a large scale, I'm talking about where you have dingoes having open access to domestic livestock, then obviously the domestic livestock are natural prey for the dingo."

The dingoes are expected to be introduced within a month or two.

Click here for more information go to Working Dingoes Saving Wildlife project.

Click here to visit the Australian Dingo Foundation website.

Dingo image courtesy of Josef Schofield.

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