Worth looking after? The dilemma of the dingo

[depakid]

Victoria is taking the first tentative steps towards protecting its dingo population. But the moves are not without controversy.
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The dingo helped shape Europeans' first impressions of the vast and perplexing Australian continent. Since those first colonial experiences, the dingo has taken on an iconic status in Australian culture, but a contradictory one. The dingo is deceptively familiar in its dog-like appearance. At the same time, there is something distant and defiant about it. It is resistant to human priorities.

The perception of this native species as a danger to livestock as more land has been taken over for farming has led to its near extinction, with little heed paid to the important role of the dingo in a balanced ecosystem. The Victorian government has begun the first steps to ensuring that enough public land is put aside to protect and rehabilitate dingo populations. This program will be a litmus test of how serious we really are about environmental sustainability.

When the First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay in 1788, Governor Arthur Phillip's first encounter with indigenous Australians was also an encounter with the dingo. George Worgan, surgeon of the Sirius recorded that the "natives . . . had a dog with them, something of the fox species". Exploring Port Phillip in 1803, James Tuckey, the First Lieutenant of the Calcutta, recorded a number of native animals, including "the native dog".

As the colonists pushed into the remotest of places in the Australian interior, the dingo was there to meet them. Unlike other indigenous species, the dingo displayed a "curious hankering after man", following travellers "at a discrete distance", "despite the fact that he is always killed at sight" for the price of his scalp. The description encapsulated the uneasy relationship between colonial society and the uncertainties of a new and often misunderstood environment. The disappearance of Azaria Chamberlain at Uluru, in 1980, has helped perpetuate that uncertainty.

Conflict with sheep farmers set in train a pattern of persecution for more than 200 years, during which the battle against the dingo took on folkloric dimensions in some rural communities. In Victoria, the dingo has been considered a pest animal, along with exotic invasive species such as rabbits, feral goats and pigs. There has been extensive baiting and trapping at great public expense. This "control" has included the "pre-emptive" targeting of breeding sites deep within the Victorian bushland.

Now this long-standing persecution of the dingo is being reassessed.

More: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/worth-looking-after-the-dilemma-of-the-dingo-20100722-10m5x.html

[Yunomi]

1. Huh. The persecution of the dingo has been "reassessed"

for at least the last 40 years. At least they're not waiting until it is extinct, like they did the Thylacine.

[XemaSab]

2. I've had two heeler mixes

We celebrate the dingo in this house. :D

[UndertheOcean]

3. "A dingo ate my baby"