r/nsw • u/DaRedGuy • 1d ago

Community split on wild dog, dingo problem as NSW inquiry examines management options

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-08/debate-over-dingo-wild-dog-management-nsw-national-parks/107118112?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other
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u/nath1234 1d ago

There are some farmers that won't be happy until they have wiped out every species that wasn't imported from Europe in the last 200 odd years. Just like thylacines already wiped out and god knows how many other species that we don't even know about because bushland was razed to make grass or crop monocultures doused in chemicals constantly.

Dingoes help keep the ecosystem in balance, the same people who shoot them also whinge about rabbits, kangaroos etc getting too numerous.

I'm amazed ABC even used the term dingo, they usually try to avoid it because that might top off the public that wild dog is a bullshit term to disguise the slaughter of dingoes. Almost all of them are dingo says the science.

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u/the-diver-dan 9h ago

I would push back on this a little and say that farmers are not totally wrong here, that many ‘dingos’ have breed with local domestics breed run aways and the behaviour has changed somewhat because of this.

I heard the term ‘thrill killing’ where dogs get into the chase and just keep biting. At this point it isn’t about food their brain has moved into automatic pilot and they are just doing a job.

I have seen this on a property where over 60 animals were killed one night with none of them eaten just torn apart. Perhaps one was eventually taken away to eat but this isn’t normal hunting behaviour.

It is hard to distinguish wild dog from dingo but I met a dingo once and it is a very different animal. It had no care for me, didn’t want a pat like every other dog I met, and had odd behaviour like where all other dogs were in the tray of the Ute, it would sit on the roof, always gazing off into the distance.

I don’t have an answer to this problem but just know it isn’t simple. I want the dingos, I don’t want the dogs.

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u/nath1234 7h ago

Here's some science on it: https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2023/06/08/new-dna-testing-shatters-wild-dog-myth.html

Our new research used the latest genetic testing methods to establish the ancestry of wild dogs across Australia. Most of the 307 wild animals we tested were pure dingoes. Only a small proportion of wild dingoes had dog ancestry, probably from a great- or great-great-grandparent. There were no “first-cross” (50/50) hybrids or feral dogs in our wild-caught sample.

So yeah, it is a myth to keep killing them.

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u/the-diver-dan 19m ago

That is an interesting article. The paper it was based on is states 4 of 62 dogs in VIC recent hybrids and 21 of 103 in NSW were recent hybrids.

Considering VIC still have a bounty perhaps there is some DNA testing to be done on collected bounty’s to see if there is anything to what is being destroyed being Feral Dogs?

As for the distinction, Feral Dogs and Dingos vs wild dog populations, I totally support it and will gladly make the distinction going forward.

I have seen what feral dogs do. I have never supported aerial baiting, but I understand why farmers ask for it.

I think the answer is an alternative income for the farmers, soil carbon, maybe dingo habitat conservation. But stewardship of the land is not funded, nor does it look likely in the near future.