Dingoes
"..they are the only australian native classed as vermin, how sad that such a noble and loving companion is now regarded as a pest, it is not just cruel but a betrayal of the highest order”
The Save the Fraser Island Dingo website is here ... http://www.savefraserislanddingoes.com/ with lots of info about the FI dingoes......*
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Wild Dogs 10/8/11
A group of Victorian researchers hope dingo urine could become a weapon in the fight against wild dog populations.
The group aims to detect the distinct scents in the urine that send no-trespassing messages to other dogs, as a non-lethal way of controlling the animals that are classed as pests.
The Department of Sustainability and Environment, the body leading the research, says wild dogs cause about $18 million worth of damage to agricultural production in Victoria each year.
Advertisement: Story continues below "We know that dogs mark their territories with urine and that the chemicals in the urine contain messages that other dogs understand," DSE scientist Alan Robley said.
"The research aims to isolate those chemicals and work out which odour is responsible for sending the no-trespassing message."
Dr Robley says the ultimate goal was to develop a product that could act as a barrier to wild dogs entering farms or suburbs.
The researchers have tested urine samples from eight dingoes and identified more than 20 chemicals.
"So far the dominant smells in the urine have been identified as resembling a mixture of strawberries and cardboard," Dr Robley said.
The DSE will trade its dingo data with researchers in Botswana who are working on identifying chemical signals in the urine of urine of wild African dogs.
AAP
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/animals/urine-could-hold-key-to-wild-dog-control-20110803-1ib80.html#ixzz1UYzuz6ag
The group aims to detect the distinct scents in the urine that send no-trespassing messages to other dogs, as a non-lethal way of controlling the animals that are classed as pests.
The Department of Sustainability and Environment, the body leading the research, says wild dogs cause about $18 million worth of damage to agricultural production in Victoria each year.
Advertisement: Story continues below "We know that dogs mark their territories with urine and that the chemicals in the urine contain messages that other dogs understand," DSE scientist Alan Robley said.
"The research aims to isolate those chemicals and work out which odour is responsible for sending the no-trespassing message."
Dr Robley says the ultimate goal was to develop a product that could act as a barrier to wild dogs entering farms or suburbs.
The researchers have tested urine samples from eight dingoes and identified more than 20 chemicals.
"So far the dominant smells in the urine have been identified as resembling a mixture of strawberries and cardboard," Dr Robley said.
The DSE will trade its dingo data with researchers in Botswana who are working on identifying chemical signals in the urine of urine of wild African dogs.
AAP
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/animals/urine-could-hold-key-to-wild-dog-control-20110803-1ib80.html#ixzz1UYzuz6ag
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Dingoes 27/7/11
Dingoes
“..they are the only australian native classed as vermin, how sad that such a noble and loving companion is now regarded as a pest, it is not just cruel but a betrayal of the highest order”
The Save the Fraser Island Dingo website is here ... http://www.savefraserislanddingoes.com/ with lots of info about the FI dingoes......*
“..they are the only australian native classed as vermin, how sad that such a noble and loving companion is now regarded as a pest, it is not just cruel but a betrayal of the highest order”
The Save the Fraser Island Dingo website is here ... http://www.savefraserislanddingoes.com/ with lots of info about the FI dingoes......*
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Fraser Island Dingoes 30/6/11
Fraser Island Dingoes
Here is a must watch Video on how DERM are interfering with the Fraser Island dingoes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSSaknF6Wnw&feature=feedu
Dingoes
Dingoes have become such a problem in the state's (Sth Australia) north that the local MP is calling for the introduction of a $200-a-head bounty. Farmers are warning the viability of some sheep farming could be at risk if dingo numbers continue to grow. Liberal MP for Stuart Dan van Holst Pellekaan has told Parliament the dingoes are "ravaging pastoral stock in SA below the dog fence" which is meant to keep them out of farming areas. "The difficulty with dingoes is they are extremely hard to shoot, to poison and to trap," Mr van Holst Pellekaan said. Dingoes are pushing south because the bumper season in the Outback is providing ideal breeding conditions. A property near Broken Hill has lost 3000 lambs to dingoes in the past two years. Dingoes are supposed to be kept out of pastoral areas by the 5320km dog fence, which runs from outside Brisbane to the Nullarbor Plain.
South of the fence, dingoes are prescribed pests which can be shot or baited. "I believe that we ought to have a system whereby people who shoot a dingo can claim a bounty from the government," Mr van Holst Pellekaan said. He said he believed the only people who should collect the bounty would be pastoralists with leases below the dog fence who were already taking part in other government programs for the culling of dingoes. SA Farmers' Federation president Peter White said reports from the pastoral country showed there could be as many as 200 dingoes breeding. "We have seen some substantial stock losses in some areas," he said. He welcomed the idea of a bounty, saying "anything we can do to reduce these numbers is certainly a good idea". If dingo numbers continued to grow, the viability of running sheep in some areas could be at risk. The Government is unlikely to support the move with Environment Department chief executive Allan Holmes saying four major studies on bounty systems in Australia had concluded they were flawed. He said Natural Resource Management boards were best placed to deal with regional problems of this sort and bounties were not one of the recommended methods. *SA News
Here is a must watch Video on how DERM are interfering with the Fraser Island dingoes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSSaknF6Wnw&feature=feedu
Dingoes
Dingoes have become such a problem in the state's (Sth Australia) north that the local MP is calling for the introduction of a $200-a-head bounty. Farmers are warning the viability of some sheep farming could be at risk if dingo numbers continue to grow. Liberal MP for Stuart Dan van Holst Pellekaan has told Parliament the dingoes are "ravaging pastoral stock in SA below the dog fence" which is meant to keep them out of farming areas. "The difficulty with dingoes is they are extremely hard to shoot, to poison and to trap," Mr van Holst Pellekaan said. Dingoes are pushing south because the bumper season in the Outback is providing ideal breeding conditions. A property near Broken Hill has lost 3000 lambs to dingoes in the past two years. Dingoes are supposed to be kept out of pastoral areas by the 5320km dog fence, which runs from outside Brisbane to the Nullarbor Plain.
South of the fence, dingoes are prescribed pests which can be shot or baited. "I believe that we ought to have a system whereby people who shoot a dingo can claim a bounty from the government," Mr van Holst Pellekaan said. He said he believed the only people who should collect the bounty would be pastoralists with leases below the dog fence who were already taking part in other government programs for the culling of dingoes. SA Farmers' Federation president Peter White said reports from the pastoral country showed there could be as many as 200 dingoes breeding. "We have seen some substantial stock losses in some areas," he said. He welcomed the idea of a bounty, saying "anything we can do to reduce these numbers is certainly a good idea". If dingo numbers continued to grow, the viability of running sheep in some areas could be at risk. The Government is unlikely to support the move with Environment Department chief executive Allan Holmes saying four major studies on bounty systems in Australia had concluded they were flawed. He said Natural Resource Management boards were best placed to deal with regional problems of this sort and bounties were not one of the recommended methods. *SA News
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
New Australian Animal Flood Appeal
Sydney Pet Rescue & Adoption, has launched the Animal Flood Victims Emergency Appeal, and together with various other rescue groups, they are working hard to raise funds to support animals affected by the recent devastating floods in Qld. The Wildlife Protection Association of Australia is one of the organisations they have chosen to support with the Appeal. We will be using the funds they raise to support foster carers in the worst affected and priority areas, with financial support to assist with the rescue and foster care of wildlife. ……….We thank SPRA and all the rescue groups who are working hard with them, for their support…..
Please click on this link to find out more about the appeal: SPRA Flood Animal Appeal Here!
Please click on this link to find out more about the appeal: SPRA Flood Animal Appeal Here!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Fraser Dingoes 18/1/11
Dingoes
The dingo that attacked a Korean tourist on Fraser Island at the weekend will be killed if it can be identified. The incident early on Sunday morning saw the 41-year-old tourist bitten on the leg, hand and forearm by a dingo on 75 Mile Beach at Eurong. The woman and her friend had been surrounded by a pack of five dingoes when one lunged forward, attacking her. DERM's Regional Manager Ross Belcher said the behaviour of the dingo had posed a clear threat to the safety of visitors and the local community. “If the dingo is positively identified, it will have to be put down to protect public safety,” he said. “Through the introduction of the Dingo Management Strategy the number of dingoes having to be destroyed as a result of dangerous behaviour has decreased from as many as 14 in 2002 to five in 2010. “This incident serves as an ongoing reminder of the unpredictable and dangerous nature of dingoes on Fraser. They are wild animals and need to be treated as such.”
As rangers tried to identify the dingo yesterday politicians and wildlife lobby groups seized on the incident to attack DERM's current dingo management policy. State Member for Hervey Bay Ted Sorensen said Fraser Island was a major tourist attraction and people had the right to be safe from these attacks. “DERM's dingo strategy has never been peer-reviewed and problems identified by the island's visitors and residents have simply been ignored,” he said. Malcom Kilpatrick from Save Fraser Island Dingoes said the bottom line was that the management strategy “had some good points, but it did have problems and they needed to be fixed now”. “If it was the alpha male leader of the pack that attacked the tourist and it is chased down and shot you can just about say goodbye to the other members of the pack because they won't survive without their leader. “That means five dingoes may die because of this one incident and that is a tragedy,” Mr Kilpatrick said. *Fraser Coast Chronicle
The dingo that attacked a Korean tourist on Fraser Island at the weekend will be killed if it can be identified. The incident early on Sunday morning saw the 41-year-old tourist bitten on the leg, hand and forearm by a dingo on 75 Mile Beach at Eurong. The woman and her friend had been surrounded by a pack of five dingoes when one lunged forward, attacking her. DERM's Regional Manager Ross Belcher said the behaviour of the dingo had posed a clear threat to the safety of visitors and the local community. “If the dingo is positively identified, it will have to be put down to protect public safety,” he said. “Through the introduction of the Dingo Management Strategy the number of dingoes having to be destroyed as a result of dangerous behaviour has decreased from as many as 14 in 2002 to five in 2010. “This incident serves as an ongoing reminder of the unpredictable and dangerous nature of dingoes on Fraser. They are wild animals and need to be treated as such.”
As rangers tried to identify the dingo yesterday politicians and wildlife lobby groups seized on the incident to attack DERM's current dingo management policy. State Member for Hervey Bay Ted Sorensen said Fraser Island was a major tourist attraction and people had the right to be safe from these attacks. “DERM's dingo strategy has never been peer-reviewed and problems identified by the island's visitors and residents have simply been ignored,” he said. Malcom Kilpatrick from Save Fraser Island Dingoes said the bottom line was that the management strategy “had some good points, but it did have problems and they needed to be fixed now”. “If it was the alpha male leader of the pack that attacked the tourist and it is chased down and shot you can just about say goodbye to the other members of the pack because they won't survive without their leader. “That means five dingoes may die because of this one incident and that is a tragedy,” Mr Kilpatrick said. *Fraser Coast Chronicle
Friday, January 7, 2011
Fraser Dingoes and Jennifer Parkhurst, 8/1/11
SMH Report
The wildlife photographer Jennifer Parkhurst fell foul of the law trying to protect the island's harried inhabitants, writes Frank Robson.
Jennifer Parkhurst's war with the custodians of Fraser Island's dingoes began when she saw rangers setting traps for the harried animals atop a sand dune. It was 2003, two years after a nine-year-old boy had died in a dingo attack, and the traps were part of the Queensland government's radical crackdown on human-dingo interaction within the world-renowned national park.
Parkhurst, a wildlife photographer, approached the rangers and asked to see the traps. They were the usual cruel-looking devices, but the rangers assured her that a covering of rubber on the jaws meant the dingoes would not be hurt. Once trapped, they would be ear-tagged for identification and then released.
"So I said, 'OK, if they don't hurt, let's pop your arm in one and trigger it,'" Parkhurst says. "But they didn't go for that idea. After that, relations between me and DERM [Queensland's Department of Environment and Resource Management] got steadily worse."
Advertisement: Story continues below Over ensuing years, rangers killed scores of "problem" dingoes and fenced off the island's residential communities and campsites to isolate the animals from humans. Signs were erected and brochures depicting dingoes as fearsome, toothy killers liable to attack at any moment were distributed, with a warning that anyone feeding them would be ordered off the island and fined up to $3000.
Cut off from their human food sources - rubbish tips, camp bins and the island residents who had fed them scraps for decades - and with their natural habitat under siege by up to 350,000 tourists a year, Fraser's native dogs, one of the purest dingo strains left in Australia, became desperate victims of Queensland's bizarre tourism-native species juggling act.
Snapshots by island residents show emaciated dingoes standing plaintively outside the communities' electrified cattle grids or dragging legs injured by the department's "harmless" traps or being "hazed" (shot at by rangers with slingshots and pellets) away from carloads of excitable backpackers. In some cases, autopsies of those killed by rangers revealed nothing in their stomachs but sand or plastic waste or grass.
"To see these beautiful animals in that condition broke my heart," Parkhurst says. "The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service [a department agency] estimates there are more than 200 dingoes on the island, but even allowing for seasonal breeding variations I think there are a lot less than that."
For years, Parkhurst, 43, travelled daily from her home at Rainbow Beach to photograph one of the island's 10 dingo packs at Hook Point, on Fraser's southern tip.
Increasingly at odds with the rangers, who suspected her of illegally feeding the pack, she was woken early on August 25, 2009, by five department officials and a policeman, who had a warrant to search her home.
Six hours later, they left, taking all her computer files about dingoes, including a book she was writing, 90 department dingo autopsy reports she had obtained through freedom-of-information searches, and her spirited analysis of the department's dingo management stuff-ups. They took her still and video footage of dingoes, her journals, field notes and even photos of "K9", her pet dog of 16 years which died not long before the raid. (Most of the material has yet to be returned.)
On November 3 last year, Parkhurst appeared in Maryborough Magistrates Court and pleaded guilty to 46 charges related to feeding and "disturbing" dingoes in the Great Sandy National Park (Fraser Island) between July 2008 and August 2009.
Pleading not guilty wasn't an option: among the videos seized was footage of her feeding members of the Hook Point dingo pack and celebrating Christmas Day 2008, with the pack and her now former boyfriend. Parkhurst is heard to say: "Three roast chickens … disappeared in seconds, but gee whiz, they loved it."
(The videos seized also contained footage shot by Parkhurst of a veteran ranger, Les Gallehawk, feeding dingoes a bucket of fish at the same location. Gallehawk was sacked and fined $300 for his action last year. "I'm not allowed to say anything about it," he said from his home. "I had to sign an agreement after I got sacked.")
She was fined $40,000 and received a nine-month jail term, suspended for three years. The magistrate, John Smith, referred to the "deliberate nature" of Parkhurst's offending, saying she had engaged in a covert campaign over a long period and had sought to hide her offending from rangers.
At her home, Parkhurst told the Herald she had been made a scapegoat for the department's flawed management of Fraser Island. She believes the harshness of her sentence was linked to her role as an activist against the government's treatment of island dingoes. "I have to take responsibility for what I did," she adds, "but I don't accept that feeding starving animals makes them dangerous. I believe if everyone was feeding them - as residents and rangers used to - they would be less of a risk to visitors, not more."
Before her court appearance, rangers killed five of the juvenile dingoes Parkhurst had fed and given names to, claiming they had become habituated and had "attacked" humans. "My actions put the spotlight on that pack, and that's what got them killed. That's what I'm remorseful about … yet I hope people can understand how horrific it was watching those animals starving. It's such a slow, cruel, horrible process."
Sydney Morning Herald 8/1/11
The wildlife photographer Jennifer Parkhurst fell foul of the law trying to protect the island's harried inhabitants, writes Frank Robson.
Jennifer Parkhurst's war with the custodians of Fraser Island's dingoes began when she saw rangers setting traps for the harried animals atop a sand dune. It was 2003, two years after a nine-year-old boy had died in a dingo attack, and the traps were part of the Queensland government's radical crackdown on human-dingo interaction within the world-renowned national park.
Parkhurst, a wildlife photographer, approached the rangers and asked to see the traps. They were the usual cruel-looking devices, but the rangers assured her that a covering of rubber on the jaws meant the dingoes would not be hurt. Once trapped, they would be ear-tagged for identification and then released.
"So I said, 'OK, if they don't hurt, let's pop your arm in one and trigger it,'" Parkhurst says. "But they didn't go for that idea. After that, relations between me and DERM [Queensland's Department of Environment and Resource Management] got steadily worse."
Advertisement: Story continues below Over ensuing years, rangers killed scores of "problem" dingoes and fenced off the island's residential communities and campsites to isolate the animals from humans. Signs were erected and brochures depicting dingoes as fearsome, toothy killers liable to attack at any moment were distributed, with a warning that anyone feeding them would be ordered off the island and fined up to $3000.
Cut off from their human food sources - rubbish tips, camp bins and the island residents who had fed them scraps for decades - and with their natural habitat under siege by up to 350,000 tourists a year, Fraser's native dogs, one of the purest dingo strains left in Australia, became desperate victims of Queensland's bizarre tourism-native species juggling act.
Snapshots by island residents show emaciated dingoes standing plaintively outside the communities' electrified cattle grids or dragging legs injured by the department's "harmless" traps or being "hazed" (shot at by rangers with slingshots and pellets) away from carloads of excitable backpackers. In some cases, autopsies of those killed by rangers revealed nothing in their stomachs but sand or plastic waste or grass.
"To see these beautiful animals in that condition broke my heart," Parkhurst says. "The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service [a department agency] estimates there are more than 200 dingoes on the island, but even allowing for seasonal breeding variations I think there are a lot less than that."
For years, Parkhurst, 43, travelled daily from her home at Rainbow Beach to photograph one of the island's 10 dingo packs at Hook Point, on Fraser's southern tip.
Increasingly at odds with the rangers, who suspected her of illegally feeding the pack, she was woken early on August 25, 2009, by five department officials and a policeman, who had a warrant to search her home.
Six hours later, they left, taking all her computer files about dingoes, including a book she was writing, 90 department dingo autopsy reports she had obtained through freedom-of-information searches, and her spirited analysis of the department's dingo management stuff-ups. They took her still and video footage of dingoes, her journals, field notes and even photos of "K9", her pet dog of 16 years which died not long before the raid. (Most of the material has yet to be returned.)
On November 3 last year, Parkhurst appeared in Maryborough Magistrates Court and pleaded guilty to 46 charges related to feeding and "disturbing" dingoes in the Great Sandy National Park (Fraser Island) between July 2008 and August 2009.
Pleading not guilty wasn't an option: among the videos seized was footage of her feeding members of the Hook Point dingo pack and celebrating Christmas Day 2008, with the pack and her now former boyfriend. Parkhurst is heard to say: "Three roast chickens … disappeared in seconds, but gee whiz, they loved it."
(The videos seized also contained footage shot by Parkhurst of a veteran ranger, Les Gallehawk, feeding dingoes a bucket of fish at the same location. Gallehawk was sacked and fined $300 for his action last year. "I'm not allowed to say anything about it," he said from his home. "I had to sign an agreement after I got sacked.")
She was fined $40,000 and received a nine-month jail term, suspended for three years. The magistrate, John Smith, referred to the "deliberate nature" of Parkhurst's offending, saying she had engaged in a covert campaign over a long period and had sought to hide her offending from rangers.
At her home, Parkhurst told the Herald she had been made a scapegoat for the department's flawed management of Fraser Island. She believes the harshness of her sentence was linked to her role as an activist against the government's treatment of island dingoes. "I have to take responsibility for what I did," she adds, "but I don't accept that feeding starving animals makes them dangerous. I believe if everyone was feeding them - as residents and rangers used to - they would be less of a risk to visitors, not more."
Before her court appearance, rangers killed five of the juvenile dingoes Parkhurst had fed and given names to, claiming they had become habituated and had "attacked" humans. "My actions put the spotlight on that pack, and that's what got them killed. That's what I'm remorseful about … yet I hope people can understand how horrific it was watching those animals starving. It's such a slow, cruel, horrible process."
Sydney Morning Herald 8/1/11
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