Super dingoes pose worrying threat
Aug 12th 2004, 5:45 am
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Super dingoes pose worrying threat
Beware of the 150lb super-dingoes
By Nick Squires in Sydney
(Filed: 12/08/2004)
Hikers in Australia are being warned about a fierce new breed of half-dingo wild dog stalking the country's mountains and forests.
Abandoned or escaped domestic dogs such as rottweilers, bull mastiffs and Rhodesian ridgebacks have interbred with Australia's native dog to produce a new strain of "super-dingoes".
The cross-breeds are bigger and more powerful than ordinary dingoes. One animal recently shot dead by a farmer reportedly weighed 154lb. They are killing livestock and menacing walkers, horse riders and campers along the Great Dividing Range, a chain of mountains, gorges and national parks extending from Queensland through New South Wales to Victoria.
"They are extremely ferocious," Brian Tomalin, of the New South Wales Farmers' Association, said. "There's a real possibility that someone is going to be killed by one of these things, especially if they stumble on a den."
The dogs have killed so many sheep that in some areas farmers have had to switch to cattle. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...2/ixworld.html
***
AUSTRALIAN sheep farmers are being terrorised by packs of "super-dingoes" - the result of inter-breeding between the native wild dog and imported species - which are killing livestock and posing a threat to humans.
Hundreds of sheep and lambs have been killed by the dogs, which are breeding in the forests and rugged mountains of New South Wales and Victoria.
Farmers say the dogs are so aggressive that it is only a matter of time before they attack a hiker or farmer. Six months ago wild dingoes on Fraser Island, a holiday resort off the coast of Queensland, killed a nine-year-old boy.
The cross-breed dogs are much bigger than normal dingoes and are the product of the wild dogs mating with such imported breeds as Rhodesian ridgebacks, alsatians and mastiffs that have turned feral.
Inter-breeding has been going on for years - probably since Europeans first arrived in Australia - but the problem has worsened considerably in the last four years for two reasons: the ending of a poisoned baiting programme in national parks which controlled numbers, and a rise in recreational hunting in the forests.
Hunters use breeds such as rottweilers and ridgebacks to chase wild pigs; many of these dogs get lost and then mate with dingoes.
The programme of dropping poisoned bait from planes and helicopters in national parks was abandoned amid concerns that it was killing off endangered native species, in particular the tiger quoll, a marsupial about the size of a cat.
Angry farmers are now calling for a resumption of aerial baiting, saying the cross-breed dogs are increasing in number and becoming much bolder. One farmer whose property is on the edge of the Byadbo wilderness area in the Snowy Mountains, recently lost 250 sheep in two weeks.
Another farmer, Stuart Morant, 50, who rears 500 sheep on a 1,000-acre property in the Tallangatta Valley in Victoria, has lost thousands of pounds worth of livestock to dog attacks over the past few years. Sheep are currently worth around A$80 (£30) a head, but farmers receive no compensation for their loss.
Mr Morant said: "Aside from the financial loss, it is incredibly distressing. I walked down to one of the paddocks one morning to find that a wild dog had attacked a ewe as it was giving birth to a lamb. The dog had eaten half the lamb as it was coming out of the womb, and killed the mother.
"Even if sheep survive the actual attack, the dogs' teeth carry so much infection that the animals die later of blood poisoning. It wouldn't surprise me if someone gets killed by one of these things. They are big and aggressive and seem to know no fear."
The problem has become so acute that Australia's first National Wild Dog Summit will be held in the town of Wodonga, in Victoria, in February. Farmers, politicians and national parks rangers from Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland will meet to try to resolve their differences and come up with an eradication plan.
Instead of aerial baiting, park rangers are now adopting a technique known as "mound baiting", which entails burying non-poisoned chunks of meat in sand in the forest. Once they are sure that wild dogs have located the mound and are digging up the meat, they switch to a poisoned bait.
The technique is effective - 250 wild dogs have been killed in the vast Kosciusko National Park in the last year - but is extremely labour intensive.
Betty Murtagh, a sheep farmer in Victoria, and a member of the committee organising next year's wild dog summit, said: "For some farmers the financial impact of dog attacks has become so bad that they have had to switch from sheep to cattle. But now the dogs are attacking young calves.
"We are getting more and more stories of hikers being followed by wild dogs and having to pack up their tents at night because the dogs are prowling around."
By Nick Squires in Sydney
(Filed: 12/08/2004)
Hikers in Australia are being warned about a fierce new breed of half-dingo wild dog stalking the country's mountains and forests.
Abandoned or escaped domestic dogs such as rottweilers, bull mastiffs and Rhodesian ridgebacks have interbred with Australia's native dog to produce a new strain of "super-dingoes".
The cross-breeds are bigger and more powerful than ordinary dingoes. One animal recently shot dead by a farmer reportedly weighed 154lb. They are killing livestock and menacing walkers, horse riders and campers along the Great Dividing Range, a chain of mountains, gorges and national parks extending from Queensland through New South Wales to Victoria.
"They are extremely ferocious," Brian Tomalin, of the New South Wales Farmers' Association, said. "There's a real possibility that someone is going to be killed by one of these things, especially if they stumble on a den."
The dogs have killed so many sheep that in some areas farmers have had to switch to cattle. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...2/ixworld.html
***
AUSTRALIAN sheep farmers are being terrorised by packs of "super-dingoes" - the result of inter-breeding between the native wild dog and imported species - which are killing livestock and posing a threat to humans.
Hundreds of sheep and lambs have been killed by the dogs, which are breeding in the forests and rugged mountains of New South Wales and Victoria.
Farmers say the dogs are so aggressive that it is only a matter of time before they attack a hiker or farmer. Six months ago wild dingoes on Fraser Island, a holiday resort off the coast of Queensland, killed a nine-year-old boy.
The cross-breed dogs are much bigger than normal dingoes and are the product of the wild dogs mating with such imported breeds as Rhodesian ridgebacks, alsatians and mastiffs that have turned feral.
Inter-breeding has been going on for years - probably since Europeans first arrived in Australia - but the problem has worsened considerably in the last four years for two reasons: the ending of a poisoned baiting programme in national parks which controlled numbers, and a rise in recreational hunting in the forests.
Hunters use breeds such as rottweilers and ridgebacks to chase wild pigs; many of these dogs get lost and then mate with dingoes.
The programme of dropping poisoned bait from planes and helicopters in national parks was abandoned amid concerns that it was killing off endangered native species, in particular the tiger quoll, a marsupial about the size of a cat.
Angry farmers are now calling for a resumption of aerial baiting, saying the cross-breed dogs are increasing in number and becoming much bolder. One farmer whose property is on the edge of the Byadbo wilderness area in the Snowy Mountains, recently lost 250 sheep in two weeks.
Another farmer, Stuart Morant, 50, who rears 500 sheep on a 1,000-acre property in the Tallangatta Valley in Victoria, has lost thousands of pounds worth of livestock to dog attacks over the past few years. Sheep are currently worth around A$80 (£30) a head, but farmers receive no compensation for their loss.
Mr Morant said: "Aside from the financial loss, it is incredibly distressing. I walked down to one of the paddocks one morning to find that a wild dog had attacked a ewe as it was giving birth to a lamb. The dog had eaten half the lamb as it was coming out of the womb, and killed the mother.
"Even if sheep survive the actual attack, the dogs' teeth carry so much infection that the animals die later of blood poisoning. It wouldn't surprise me if someone gets killed by one of these things. They are big and aggressive and seem to know no fear."
The problem has become so acute that Australia's first National Wild Dog Summit will be held in the town of Wodonga, in Victoria, in February. Farmers, politicians and national parks rangers from Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland will meet to try to resolve their differences and come up with an eradication plan.
Instead of aerial baiting, park rangers are now adopting a technique known as "mound baiting", which entails burying non-poisoned chunks of meat in sand in the forest. Once they are sure that wild dogs have located the mound and are digging up the meat, they switch to a poisoned bait.
The technique is effective - 250 wild dogs have been killed in the vast Kosciusko National Park in the last year - but is extremely labour intensive.
Betty Murtagh, a sheep farmer in Victoria, and a member of the committee organising next year's wild dog summit, said: "For some farmers the financial impact of dog attacks has become so bad that they have had to switch from sheep to cattle. But now the dogs are attacking young calves.
"We are getting more and more stories of hikers being followed by wild dogs and having to pack up their tents at night because the dogs are prowling around."
Aug 12th 2004, 6:01 am
#2
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Re: Super dingoes pose worrying threat
What l hate is the do-gooder greenie types from the city that pressure the politicans to pass insane laws that prevents farmers or other people from culling vermin animals that are in plague proportions. People seem more concerned about the lives of dangerous half breed dogs then the sheep farmers livelihoods. If it was up to me l would let all the sporting shooters and farmers go up into the hills and blow them all away.
Aug 12th 2004, 8:33 am
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Re: Super dingoes pose worrying threat
Originally Posted by wombat42
What l hate is the do-gooder greenie types from the city that pressure the politicans to pass insane laws that prevents farmers or other people from culling vermin animals that are in plague proportions. People seem more concerned about the lives of dangerous half breed dogs then the sheep farmers livelihoods. If it was up to me l would let all the sporting shooters and farmers go up into the hills and blow them all away.
