Archive for the ‘Dingoes’ Category

Fraser Island Dingo deliberately runover

Friday, September 20th, 2013

Last Monday 20130916, around 8.30am a native dingo was hit by a vehicle at 18 Mile Beach between Eurong and Dilli Village on Fraser Island. The Island is a World Heritage listed National Park and the wildlife is protected under the Nature Conservation Act.

Distressed witnesses stated the vehicle deliberately changed direction and aimed for the dingo which was struck. The vehicle continued to proceed at speed along the beach. It was described as an Orange Pajero.

The female lay suffering and howling in the sand with her mate close by licking her wounds, a Police Officer was called, who in turn contacted Rangers, sadly, the dingo had to be euthanised.

She appeared to be feeding. The fate of her pups is unknown.

This senseless act of cruelty will hardly cause a stir, there needs to be much stiffer penalties for injuring our wildlife. This is not acceptable.

The School holidays are here, a dingo casualty now, a child could be next.

If anyone has information please contact the local police or QPWS on (07) 4121 1800

Cheryl Bryant. Publicity Officer. Save Fraser Island Dingoes Inc.

This is an old model Pajero, which may look like the killer’s car

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[Ed: It is past time that Fraser Island was completely closed to all tourism]

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Tags: Fraser, Fraser Island 4WD, Fraser Island dingo, Fraser Island tourism
Posted in 53 Animal Welfare!, Dingoes, Threats from Tourism and Recreation | 1 Comment »

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Dingo repopulation could control feral animals

Friday, February 8th, 2013

Australia’s native Dingo

Dingo Persecution must end! Public perception has to change.

(Photo credit AAP, Jim Shrimpton)

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Dingo numbers have been reduced due to extreme uncontrolled overuse of the deadly 1080 bait, and the colonial cultural persecution of Australia’s top order predator, the Dingo.

<<But scientists say governments need to seriously consider reintroducing dingoes to the landscape in order to protect vulnerable native species.

Dingoes cause hundreds of thousands of dollars damage each year to livestock and there have been huge efforts to cull them by laying poisonous baits and shooting them. But this has allowed feral species like cats and foxes to thrive and experts say the current approach is counter-productive.

About 40% of the country’s native species are listed as threatened or close to extinction, thanks to the explosion in numbers of feral cats and foxes.

Dr Tony Friend, the president of the Australian Mammal Society, says trying to control these animals is a losing battle.

“We are getting reasonably good at controlling foxes in the local areas but cats are a huge problem, partly exacerbated by removing foxes, so once the foxes are taken out, cats do well and basically step into the feet of the foxes,” he said.

Research is being conducted Australia-wide to see if bringing back dingoes will help control these pests. One recent study in South Australia’s north recorded a reduction in feral cat and fox numbers with the introduction of dingoes.

Hannah Spronk from Arid Recovery, a conservation group based just outside Roxby Downs, is heading the research.

“All seven of the foxes that we released into that pen there were killed within 17 days by the dingoes,” she said. A night photo of a feral cat with a fairy prion in its mouth.

A feral (dumped) cat with a native bird in its mouth in Tasmania

(Photo credit of Parks and Wildlife Service, Tasmania)

“They did autopsies I suppose you could say and the deaths were attributed to attacks by dingoes. All six of the feral cats that were in the pen died within 20 to 103 days after release.”

Dr Menna Jones, from the University of Tasmania, is looking at reintroducing top order predators to rebalance specific ecosystems. As well as dingoes, she is finding out whether the Tasmanian devil could also control invasive species.

“If we can put a large predator back into the ecosystem where it has become extinct, it can do the job of controlling feral cats or foxes 24 hours a day, seven days a week without the need for an ongoing management program that costs a lot of money and costs a lot of effort,” she said.

International expert and wildlife ecologist Professor Roy Dennis says dingoes could be reintroduced in a controlled manner to limit the damage they cause to livestock. But he says first of all public perception has to change.

“I think it would only work when it was the public themselves that wanted this to happen,” he said.>>

.[Source: ‘Dingo repopulation could control feral animals’, by journalist Nicola Gage, The World Today programme, ABC Radio, 20120928, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-28/dingo-repopulation-could-control-feral-animals/4286500]

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<<Dingoes don’t mix well with sheep and cattle but scientists believe there may be some benefit to keeping wild dogs around to control feral cats and foxes.

The Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre is investigating the ecological role dingoes and free-ranging crossbreed dogs play in Australia, so they can be effectively managed.

Peter Fleming, who leads CRC projects on managing wild dogs, says some people see them as under-utilised weapons against feral cats and foxes, also known as meso-predators.

Others only see them as destructive pests that attack sheep and cattle.

Dr Fleming, Principal Research Scientist in the Vertebrate Pest Research Unit of Biosecurity NSW, says it’s critically important to manage the negative impacts of free-ranging dogs using the most up-to-date scientific information.

“Right now, pressure is being brought to bear on livestock producers in some areas to reduce lethal control of all free-ranging dogs because of potential environmental benefit of dingoes,” he said in a statement.

“We know wild dogs and sheep don’t mix and that strategic co-management is the best way to go for both conservation and agricultural goals.”

He says PhD students are being sought to help with five-year research program to see if there are benefits of retaining free-ranging wild dogs to suppress foxes and feral cat impacts in some areas – while still controlling them for livestock protection.
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[Source: ‘Scientists probe dingo’s ecological role’, 20130128, by AAP, ^http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/scientists-probe-dingos-ecological-role-20130128-2dgql.html]

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<<…How do we effectively manage dingoes and other free-ranging cross-breed dogs when we just don’t know the true ecological roles of these predators?

Researchers with the Invasive Animals CRC, led by Ben Allen and Peter Fleming – Wild Dog theme leader for the Invasive Animals CRC – have just published a critical review of dingo research methodology in Biological Conservation. Their work identifies the need for long-term research on the ecological roles of dingoes and other free-ranging dogs. But in the interim, long-term research to 2017 is already underway.

Based at Orange as principal research scientist in the Vertebrate Pest Research Unit of Biosecurity NSW, Dr Fleming said that depending on what they are eating at the time, free-ranging dogs are viewed differently by different stakeholders.

“For some, they are destructive pests attacking sheep and cattle. For others, dingoes are seen as an ‘under-utilised weapon’ against feral cats and foxes (collectively referred to as meso-predators),” he said.

Dr Fleming said there was much uncertainty about potential ‘meso-predator’ suppression by dingoes and wild dogs.

“It’s critically important that we manage the negative impacts of free-ranging dogs using the most up-to-date scientific information,” he said.

Dr Peter Fleming

Principal research scientist in the vertebrate pest research unit of Biosecurity NSW, Orange

“Right now, pressure is being brought to bear on livestock producers in some areas to reduce lethal control of all free-ranging dogs, because of potential environmental benefit of dingoes.

“We know wild dogs and sheep don’t mix and that strategic co-management is the best way to go for both conservation and agricultural goals. Community wild dog control programs in livestock production areas can suffer because of conflicting information about the roles of dingoes and the other free-ranging wild dogs.”

“However, our review shows we are unsure what the ecological roles are. The new research may yet demonstrate there are ecosystem services and net benefits of retaining free-ranging wild dogs to suppress foxes and feral cat impacts in some areas, but they will still need to be controlled for livestock protection,” Dr Fleming said.

To get to the bottom of the dingo mystery and to determine the ecological roles of free-ranging wild dogs in the many different ecosystems that make up Australia, the Invasive Animals CRC and its partners Meat & Livestock Australia and Australian Wool Innovation and have embarked on a five-year research program to enhance the nation’s ability to manage all their impacts.

A statement issued by the Invasive Animals CRC said this information was critical to manage this unique and charismatic predator in Australia – the dingo, while mitigating livestock losses.

Based at the University of New England and Biosecurity NSW, the research program will centre on north-eastern New South Wales and south-eastern Queensland, a biodiversity hotspot where livestock producers continue to suffer predation problems.

The UNE is currently receiving applications until February 15 for research PhDs to support the wild dog research team. Substantial Invasive Animals CRC resources are being devoted to the research, with up to eight PhD projects about native and introduced predators, their interactions with their prey, the plants the prey eats and the social and economic context of wild dog impacts.

“In five years’ time we will have a sound understanding of the relationships between the predators, prey, plants and people in the highly-productive north-east of NSW,” Dr Fleming said.

“In the meantime, the coordinated, strategic approach to managing free-ranging dogs and preventing livestock predation must continue,” he said.>>

[Source: ‘Long-term research aims to unravel the dingo mystery’, 20130129, Beef Central, ^http://www.beefcentral.com/p/news/article/2690]

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Tags: Australia's native Dingo, Biosecurity NSW, dingo persecution, Dingo repopulation, feral predation, Invasive Animals CRC, managing free-ranging dogs, reintroducing top order predators, Vertebrate Pest Research Unit, Wild Dogs
Posted in Dingoes, Threats from Colonising Species, Threats from Poaching and Poisoning | 4 Comments »

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Fraser Island: Bevan Tourism dictates Dingo Culls

Saturday, December 22nd, 2012

Inky

A pure Fraser Island Dingo

persecuted by a colonial-mindset Queensland Government

..left ear ‘tagged’ by rangers and permanently damaged

..since shot by same rangers.

Wildlife-based Tourism Exploitation

<<Wildlife-based tourism is a major tourism activity and is increasing in popularity. For many international tourists visiting Australia, viewing Australian wildlife forms a major part of their visit (Fredline & Faulkner 2001). For domestic tourists, viewing wildlife and sometimes interacting with it is also an important activity, and it caters for specialists and generalists alike.>>

[Source: ‘Economics, Wildlife Tourism and Conservation: Three Case Studies’, 2004, by Clem Tisdell and Clevo Wilson, CRC for Sustainable Tourism, commissioned by the Australian Government (i.e. taxpayer funded), p.1, ^http://www.crctourism.com.au/WMS/Upload/Resources/bookshop/FactSheets/fact%20sheet.pdf]

But it is this ‘Wildlife-based Tourism‘ industry sector where Australian tourism has taken on a dark side. The industry and the revenue and profits it generates are being used by Australian state governments to justify greater destruction of Australia’s fragile ecosystems. This innocuous euphemism is exploited by the Queensland Tourism industry to belie the true destructive ecological impacts of ‘Nature Tourism‘ or ‘Ecotourism‘.

This is like painting a bulldozer green and all subsequent use labelled as ‘eco-bulldozing‘.

Badge d’Exploitation

.At least 50% of a tourism operator’s offerings must have a Nature-based focus

and some vague notion of ‘sustainability’ principles.

Pay our fee…et voilà!’ – eco-certification!

[Read More: EcoTourism Australia (a private company), ^http://www.ecotourism.org.au/]

But the most disturbing trend is that even the state government custodians entrusted with ecological protection and conservation, the variously named National Parks and Wildlife Service agencies, have placed the aims of recreation and tourism at a higher management priority than their core function of ecological protection and conservation.

Perhaps this exploitative trend is no more prevalent than across Queensland’s Natural ecology, which is ‘managed’ by the Queensland Government’s Department of National Parks, Recreation and Racing. About Us: <<The department manages national parks and their use and enjoyment by all Queenslanders; encourages active lifestyles by providing recreational and sporting opportunities; and manages the racing industry which directly employs 30,000 Queenslanders.>>

<<Queensland’s parks and forests underpin the State’s thriving nature tourism industry. They attract millions of overseas and Aussie visitors each year and contribute billions of dollars to the Queensland economy. Tourists visiting Queensland’s national parks spend $4.43 billion annually—28% of all total tourist spending in Queensland.>>

[Source: ‘Commercial tourism on parks’, Department of National Parks, Recreation and Racing, Queensland Government, ^http://www.nprsr.qld.gov.au/tourism/]

.Queensland Government’s Coat of Arms

Left: a Red Deer entirely irrelevant to Queenslanders. Right: Queensland’s native Brolga (water bird) symbolising Queensland’s native wildlife population.

The Queensland state motto in Latin, “Audax at Fidelis”, means “Bold but Faithful” – faithful to whom?

Entirely, this emblem is one of the most meaningless and hypocritical of any government.

Situated along Queensland’s central coast, World Heritage Fraser Island is a case in point. Here, tourism visitation has become unsustainable to the point of driving the island’s ecological destruction. The Queensland Government’s tourism marketing brands the area the Fraser Coast to take in whale watching in Hervey Bay, Reef diving and Fraser Island. The exploitation of Wildlife-based Tourism is focused on maximising visitation numbers, as if bureaucratic commissions are earned according to visitation numbers.

Commercial tourism unethically/illegally too close to a Humpback Whale

Yet this image appears on the official Queensland Government tourism website (20121222)

[Source: ^http://www.queenslandholidays.com.au/destinations/fraser-coast/fraser-coast_home.cfm]

The Australian National Guidelines for Whale and Dolphin Watching 2005

[Source: Australian Government,

^http://www.environment.gov.au/coasts/species/cetaceans/whale-watching/]

Fraser Island’s native top order predator, the Dingo, has been on Fraser Island for at least 1000 years. But the Dingo and its fragile ecology are being persecuted and destroyed by the Queensland Government because the prevailing 20th Century exploitative attitude is that Bevan Tourism generates income; Dingoes don’t. The wildlife tourism promotion of Fraser Island by the Queensland Government has exploited ‘the thrill of seeing a dingo ‘in the wild’ and used the Dingo as a major tourism drawcard.

Dingo Tourism on Fraser Island is actively encouraged by the Queensland Government

Fraser Island Discovery, with its dingo logo shown above, won a recent Queensland Government Tourism Award

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Bevan Tourism

Bevan Tourism is the exploitative, destructive and disrespectful tourism that appeals to the uncouth, loud mouthed, red neck, yobbo, hoon element of Queensland society.

Particular to parochial Queensland, the ‘Bevan‘ is characteristically a young poorly educated Caucasian male usually very thin, or sometimes quite fat with the onset of manboobs, and displaying the clichéd antisocial behaviours such as hooliganism, swearing, reckless driving, alcoholism, Winnie blue smoking (with spare fag ducked behind ear), XXXX/Bundy Rum drinking, and habitually louting around in front of sheilas.

Bevans at Play

Bevans are best avoided, especially at social gatherings, sports events, beaches and at campsites. (See also: ‘Bogan’ (Melbourne), ‘Westie’ (Sydney), ‘Ned’ (Glasgow), ‘Yob’, ‘Bozo’, ‘Low-Life’).

A Queenslander Bevan, royally succumbed to recreational stupor

Bevan Tourism has taken cultural hold over a few popular holiday destinations along the Queensland coast. Over the past few generations, Bevans mainly from metropolitan Brisbane have particularly targeted the Gold Coast, Maryborough and Fraser Island.

Queensland’s Bevan Tourism most exquisitely expressed here by Fraser Explorer Tours

– on Fraser Island

Fraser Island, despite being recognised and listed as a Natural World heritage site since 1992, each holiday season is invaded by Bevan Tourism, targeted especially over Easter. In part this is because, Queensland Government’s own state tourism department, in cahoots with its national park agency, has marketed Fraser Island for ‘adventure’, ‘parties’, and ‘families’. Fraser Island’s international listing has been exploited as a tourism drawcard, more so than properly conserved for its internationally important remnant ecosystems, wildlife and flora.

The disturbing trend is that the in mindset of parochial Queensland Tourism, Bevan Tourism is marketed as an equitable right for all people, and that Nature exists in an anthropocentric sense simply to serve that right. This attitude to ecology is retrograde and straight out of the ancient Old Testament:

<<And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.>>

[Source: Book of Genesis, 1:26, Christian Bible, Old Testament]

The ‘Dominion Theology’ worldview of Nature

It’s there to be used, feared, exploited, persecuted, poached, butchered, eaten, enslaved, raped, shot, hacked, played with as sport, made extinct.

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Fraser Island heritage avoids Conservation

Pure Fraser Island

[Source: Australian Geographic,

^http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/view-image.htm?index=8&gid=9642]

Fraser Island, the world’s largest sand island, was afforded UNESCO World Heritage status because it satisfied the following three selection criteria:

Superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance (Natural Criterion 7)
Outstanding examples which represent major stages of earth’s history, including the record of life, significant ongoing geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features (Natural Criterion 8 )
Outstanding examples representing significant ongoing ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals (Natural Criterion 9)

[Source: ‘Fraser Island World Heritage Area’, Department of National Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing, Queensland Government, ^http://www.nprsr.qld.gov.au/world-heritage-areas/fraser_island.html]

Despite these recognise over-arching natural values, tourism and its negative impacts have been allowed to snowball in visitation volume since heritage listing in 1992, while custodial management has allowed the same values to deteriorate.

What has been conspicuously overlooked is proper recognition of Fraser Island’s status under UNESCO Natural Criterion 10, for surely Fraser Island ‘contains the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation.’

The custodianship of such valuable World Heritage properties across Australia is the ultimate responsibility of the Australian Government.

While Australia’s World Heritage properties are legally protected under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act), conveniently responsibility for that protection is rather half-hearted since the Australian Government delegates management of all of them to the lesser state governments, which have considerably less resources and demonstrably less interest in delivering UNESCO-standard ecological conservation management.

^United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

The Queensland Government for instance, currently lumps Fraser Island management under its Department of National Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing. Clearly, the attitude of the Queensland Government to World Heritage and National Parks under its custodial responsibility exists for human recreational benefit and enjoyment – along with sport and racing.

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Fraser Island’s Record of Exploitation

Prior to 1992, Fraser Island was industrially abused; mined for minerals and sand (1966-1989) and logged for old growth Turpentine timber (Syncarpia glomulifera) for over 130 years.

[Read: >‘Impacts of Logging on Fraser Island’]

Fraser Island’s ecosystems (its rainforests, Wallum woodlands, freshwater dune lakes and coastal dunes) came close to irreversible annihilation by over-exploitation by these two industries and condoned for such by successive Queensland governments.

Since logging and mining were stopped (only from international embarrassment), Queensland’s Tourism Industry has been supplanted as Fraser Island’s main threat, yet consistently encouraged and funded doggedly by a 20th Century mindset Queensland Government.

Wild Dingo

Australia’s native top order predator

promoted by the Queensland Government as a tourism drawcard to Fraser Island

culled by the Queensland Government from 300 down to just 100 individuals

shot by the Queensland Government if ‘aggressive’ (wild)

<<Fraser Island tourism has been burgeoning for decades. In 1971 the number of visitors to Fraser Island doubled from 5,000 in the previous year to 10,000 as a result of the publicity surrounding the sandmining controversy. It has steadily increased ever since. By 1999 it had reached over 300,000 visitors.>>

Current statistics for Fraser Island visitation are not readily published by the Queensland Government, but it is estimated that around 500,000 visitors, many from overseas, visit Fraser Island each year. [Source: ‘Concerns heightening for Fraser Island’s dingoes’, 2009, by Nick Alexander, in Ecos Magazine, ^http://www.ecosmagazine.com/view/journals/ECOS_Print_Fulltext.cfm?f=EC151p18]

Hummers catering for Bevan Tourism

– on Fraser Island

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<<For Lake McKenzie (Fraser Island) in particular, extremely high visitation levels over the course of summer are ultimately likely to influence the ecology of the system, particularly if a considerable proportion of visitors add nutrients to the lake, either through urination, washing or bathing activities (Strasinger 1994, Butler et al. 1996).>>

[Source: ‘Effects of Tourism on Fraser Island Dune Lakes‘, 2004, by Wade Hadwen et al.

Read the complete paper below under the heading ‘Read more about Tourism Impacts on Fraser Island‘]

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The Four Main Adverse Impacts of Tourism on Fraser Island

1. Target Destinations (high concentration visitation)

Certain Fraser Island areas are identified and marketed by tourist interests with the result that they draw tourists to them like bees to a honey pot even to the extent that they become needlessly degraded and overused. Eli Creek, Lake McKenzie and Central Station are such sites.

Daily hundreds of tourists from the Noosa area spend needless hours to drive past equally outstanding natural features in the Cooloola National Park so that commercial tour operators can capitalize on the “marketing of these well-known products”. This focus is unsustainable.

Such sites are being overused and yet tourists are reluctant to be redirected to other alternative areas which could sustain some increase in visitation.

Tourist saturation of Eli Creek, Fraser Island

(Dingo habitat designated off-limits to Dingoes)

2. Means of Access

Once tourism becomes established, it is difficult to change.

Tourist guide books tend to be based upon past experience. Recommendations to intending visitors are largely based on such past practice. Thus although there are better ways to see Fraser Island than in largely lumbering four wheel drive buses or self of four wheel drive vehicles, this method of visitation has become so entrenched that it is difficult to change.

The most serious adverse environmental impacts now being experienced on Fraser Island are result of this form of transportation.

Ban 4WDs from Fraser Island

Change the 20th Century culture!

3. “Traditional” Visitation Practices

It takes very little time for modern society to claim that certain practices are so “traditional” that practitioners claim they can’t be changed.

This has been used by commercial fishers to demand to camp in the same site contrary to the Recreation Areas Management Act and to have vehicular access to beaches closed to other vehicular traffic.

Likewise the “tradition” of free range camping has become so entrenched that although this practice has been shown to be unsustainable there is a reluctance to phase it out despite compelling evidence that this form of tourism should be ended. Similar conservatism allows Fraser Island tourists to continue to squander resources and degrade the environment through open camp-fires.

4. Surface Disturbance

On Fraser Island, the impact of surface disturbance of any sort is more critical than most other natural areas which have a much more robust substrate (ground surface).

The susceptibility of the substrate to any disturbance magnifies the impacts of tourism on Fraser Island more than most other natural areas. (Coral reefs and semi-arid areas with cryptobionic crusts may be as susceptible to disturbance). The reason for this fragility is due to the fact that exposed sand surfaces in vegetated areas of Fraser Island have a very high degree of water repellence which makes them very susceptible to water erosion. Vegetated sand surfaces are much less susceptible.

If the visitors can be carried in such a way that they do not disturb the substrate surface by such means as board walks or by light rail, then the surface disturbance and thus the environmental impact of visitation is contained and reduced.>>

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Further Tourism Impacts

5. Erosion of Wilderness Values

Tourism erodes wilderness values through its infrastructure — motor vehicles, roads, modern buildings and the sounds of modern engines. The increasing penetration of more people into parts of the island previously exempt from intense visitation erodes wilderness. Aircraft overflying remoter parts of Fraser Island and other intrusive modern noise also erodes wilderness values.

6. Spread of Injurious Agents

Injurious agencies which impact on other values of Fraser Island include the spread of weeds, feral animals and pests, new pathogens, wild fires and litter. Tourism has the potential to facilitate the introduction and spread of these injurious agencies. In the end the impact of injurious agencies resulting from tourism have a greater potential to degrade Fraser Island than some other industries.

7. Diversion of Management Resources

Managing tourism is responsible for diverting much of Fraser Island’s very limited resources from natural resource management (control of fires, weeds, feral animals etc. and resource monitoring) to recreation management (including access, waste management, behaviour control, provision of infrastructure, maintenance for roads, etc.). Tourism produces a great deal of waste and human waste and this is resulting in some water pollution particularly as a result of inadequate treatment of sewage.

Increasing numbers of tourists also impede natural resource management strategies such as fire and dingo management because of the high priority given to public safety and property protection over resource management and protection.

8. Perversion of political priorities

Pandering to perceived tourist demands has resulted in political decisions which have over-ridden the Management Plan for Fraser Island such as relocating the Toyota Fishing Expo and reopening the dangerous Orchid Beach airstrip. Many politicians are motivated more by pursuing popularity than with implementing a Management Plan which some vocal dissidents with vested interests disagree with.

A Queensland Tourism ideal image for Fraser Island

Maximising 4WD tourist numbers!

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Motor Vehicle Impacts

4WD road widening of Fraser Island

The impact of four wheel drives on Fraser Island is extremely significant; affecting roads, wildlife, habitat and recreation amenity.

9. Roads

The largest impact is on the roads. Road traffic accelerates erosion. During every heavy downpour of rain thousands of tonnes of sand wash off the roads to fill lake basins and streams with sediment and smother many natural habitats. In February 1999, over two metres of sand was deposited at the intersection of the Pile Valley and Wanggoolba Creek Road burying a large stump. Sand from adjacent roads is being sluiced into Lake McKenzie, Lake Allom, Lake Boomanjin, Lake Birrabeen and more.

Opening of the canopy over the roads results in desiccation resulting in considerable changes to the micro-flora and a reduction of ^epiphyte numbers.

10. Impacts on Wildlife

Back in 1991, when Fraser Island was listed for its natural world heritage values, its Dingo population was about 300 individuals and believed to be ‘the largest genetically
unhybridised population on the east coast of Australia.

But Bevan Tourism saw increasing numbers of young families recklessly venturing into the wild Dingo’s habitat and feeding grounds. During one of the busy tourist holiday times, Christmas summer holidays, a young child was mauled by a dingo, and an ignorant vengeful media campaigned to demonise the Dingo. The media venom fabricated the term ‘Dingo Superpack‘.

During the following six years, the Queensland Government ordered the killing of over a hundred Dingoes on Fraser Island. In 2001, a nine-year-old schoolboy, Clinton Gage, was fatally mauled by a Dingo, which sparked another media Dingo witch-hunt, and a further 32 Dingoes were killed within a matter of a few weeks by the Queensland Government.

An infant (4 years old) was badly bitten by a Dingo on Fraser Island in April 2007 and another 3 year in April 2011. Both incidents occurred during the popular Bevan Tourism Easter holidays. Both involved irresponsible parents. In July 2012, a drunken German tourist, sleeping it off alone on an isolated bush track at night, was attacked by a Dingo. He was part of Bevan Tourist group organised by the Rainbow Beach Adventure Company.

Despite the protection status of the Dingo in its native habitat in a listed World Heritage Area, the Queensland Government has ignored the wildlife values and rights in favour of perpetuating Bevan Tourism rights. It has become standard management practice for the Queensland Government’s Parks and Wildlife Service to shoot kill any ‘aggressive’ animal or animal that ‘shows no fear of humans’ – that is, Dingoes.

Dingo pup tagged by rangers on Fraser Island, November 2012

Another ear permanently damaged

Since 2009, researcher Dr Luke Leung from Queensland University, has feared the population has been reduced to around 100 animals and their genetic viability over the long term is being compromised.

In addition, shore bird numbers have been decimated by the unchecked growth of four wheel drive beach traffic. Oyster catchers, Red-capped dotterels and Beach thick-knees have been most affected.

11. Eroding Habitat

Roads occupy space, a space which takes a long time to revegetate after the roads cease to be used. Roads also act as barriers to the movement of wildlife. Distribution of many ant species and frogs is affected by roads. Some won’t cross roads to identical habitat on the other side.

As a consequence of habitat destruction, the availability of natural prey of the Dingo, such as bandicoots, rats, echidnas, fish, turtles and skinks, has declined. Dingoes have been forced to scavenge around tourist campsites for human food and garbage. Tourists ignorantly feeding Dingoes has encouraged Dingoes to become less independent upon reduced natural prey and more dependent on tourists, which has adversely altered the natural food chain only the island.

12. Pollution

Now there evidence is starting to appear that vegetation adjacent to “black holes” in the roads is suffering.

13. Noise

The aesthetic impact of noise is well known and understood yet it is largely ignored. The impact of the noise from traffic on the road above Wanggoolba Creek on the walking track beside this icon of Fraser Island significantly degrades this experience.

14. Distortion of Priorities

Populist politicians condone novel commerce ahead of novel solutions

Because so much of Fraser Island tourism is vehicle based, roads have been cannibalistic, consuming a disproportionate share all the financial and staff resources.

This stopped any progress towards a walking track management plan for the island for more than six years. Vehicle based tourism has also been responsible for preventing closing tracks due to be closed under the Management Plan for more than 6 years. Preoccupation with roads has stalled progress towards the establishment of a more ecologically sustainable light rail proposal.>>

[Sources: ‘Values of Fraser Island Tourism’, Fraser Island Defenders Organisation (FIDO), ^http://www.fido.org.au/values-of-fraser-tourism.html; ‘Concerns heightening for Fraser Island’s dingoes’, 2009, by Nick Alexander, in Ecos Magazine, CSIRO Publishing, Australia. ^http://www.ecosmagazine.com/view/journals/ECOS_Print_Fulltext.cfm?f=EC151p18]

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National Parks ‘Tourism Playground’ imperative

This ‘Godzilla’ bus especially caters for Bevans to Fraser Island

Day-to-day management and protection of the World Heritage property is carried out by the Queensland Government’s Department of National Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing’s – Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS). Much of their focus and activities is with accommodating the interests of tourists, not with respecting the viability, health of the Island’s important ecosystems, fauna and flora.

The Queensland Government has a revolving record of failed conservation management plans and strategies, reviewed and replaced since the Fraser Island Management Plan of 1975. This includes revisions in 1978, 1986, 1991, 2001, and 2006. The current strategy dated 2001 is termed the Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy (FIDMS).

Read: >Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy (2001) (PDF, 270kb)

The overall objectives of the Dingo Management Strategy are to:

Ensure the conservation of a sustainable wild dingo population on Fraser Island (Ed: numbers not specified, Dingo recovery programme non-existent)
Reduce the risk to humans (Ed: kill native Dingoes if deemed ‘aggressive’ or ‘showing no fear of humans’)
Provide visitors with safe opportunities to view dingoes in environment in near as possible to their natural state (Ed: exploit native Dingoes and their habitat for the benefit of wildlife-based tourism revenue)

The current Dingo Management Strategy includes a deliberate Dingo persecution set of directives:

Strategy 4: Programs will be implemented to modify dingo behaviour and habits which threaten human safety and wellbeing.

Strategy 5: Any dingo identified as dangerous will be destroyed humanely using accepted methods after receiving appropriate approvals.

Strategy 6: A cull to a sustainable level may be undertaken if research can show the population is not in balance.

A pure Dingo’s cruel fate

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“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset.”

~ Chief Crowfoot (c.1821-1890) of the SikSika Nation of southern Alberta, Canada.

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Implementation of the current Dingo Management Strategy prescribes “direct management of dingoes (destruction of individuals or prescribed culling)…implemented if supported
by the results of research and/or in situations where risks to human life or safety are unacceptably high and cannot be diminished through alternative measures.

Responsibilities of the dingo management Rangers include:

Public contact to inform Island visitors of appropriate behaviour concerning dingoes
Enforcement of dingo-related regulations
Monitoring and recording the status of dingo packs in their management unit (photographic records)
Marking and tagging pups and problem animals
Involvement in aversive conditioning projects
Maintaining dingo-related equipment (traps, fences, dingo incident sheets)
When authorised, the trapping and destruction of problem dingoes

Andrew Powell MP, purely for the Media

Queensland Government’s current Minister for Environment and Heritage Protection

“People…especially people in positions of power…have invested a tremendous amount of effort and time to get to where they are. They really don’t want to hear that we’re on the wrong path, that we’ve got to shift gears and start thinking differently.”

~ David Suzuki

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‘Island Playground’ dictates Dingo Culling

2009: ‘Residents protest Fraser Island dingo cull’

<<Hervey Bay residents met last night and called for an end to the hazing and culling of dingos on Fraser Island. Submissions to the review of the State Government’s dingo management strategy closes next week. Seven dingos have been killed this year compared to three last year. The Opposition’s climate change and sustainability spokesman Glen Elmes says the Government needs to listen to the community.

“We have a situation where the current system and the planning that’s put place to deal with dingos on Fraser Island is all wrong – that’s not me swanning in for half an hour and making that statement. We had a meeting in Hervey Bay last night and we listened to about 30 locals, who represented not only the indigenous community but concerned locals from both the mainland and the island.”>>

[Source: ‘Residents protest Fraser Island dingo cull’, 20090528, by Katherine Spackman, ABC, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-05-28/residents-protest-fraser-island-dingo-cull/1697234]

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2012: ‘Dingo eludes Fraser Island rangers’

<<Rangers on Fraser Island have destroyed another dingo at Cathedral Beach, but the K’Gari camp dog ‘Inky‘ still eludes them.

QPWS has decided to bring in a hired gun, a trapper, to destroy this animal. Is this the future of Fraser Island? Residents and visitors are encouraged to throw sticks, shout and kick sand at the animals and to ‘dob in a dingo‘. Some residents have even been advised to shoot them with a slingshot. There is no responsibility placed upon parents who leave children unsupervised or visitors who harass the animals, no fines or penalties, but the dingo pays the ultimate penalty and is destroyed.

The Regional Manager, Ross Belcher, admits the camp dog did not bite anyone, nor did the animal that was recently destroyed, but it has a destruction order because of a complaint by tourists who are considered unreliable and have no understanding of dingo behaviour.

This dingo has been wounded, has a mangled ear due to an infected ear tag and as a result is very wary. Therefore it would seem QPWS has achieved its aim of making the animal fearful of people, why then do they continue their campaign of search and destroy?

Locals lament a time when the dingoes could roam free and occasionally steal a fish or grab a towel from an unsuspecting tourist, it was all part of the Fraser Island experience, but now that animal would be considered dangerous and destroyed.

Unless the Management Strategy review finds in favour of the dingo and not the tourist dollar, the persecution and harassment will continue until there are no longer any animals remaining, this is the legacy of Fraser Island.>>

[Source: ‘Dingo eludes Fraser Island rangers..’, October 2012, by Cheryl Bryant, Save Fraser Island Dingoes Inc., ]

Queensland Government Rangers ‘hazing‘ a Dingo pup in its native Fraser Island habitat

‘Hazing’?

<<Hazing is harassment, where you disturb the animal’s sense of security to such an extent that it decides to move on.

To be effective, harassment must be continuous, concentrated, and caustic, just like torture.

Always remember that you are trying to convince an animal to leave its home or food source. In short, you must become the animal’s worst neighbor. You must convince the animal that you are more bothersome than the possibility of starvation or homelessness.

I. Continuous Harassment

You must harass the animal on a daily basis for as long as necessary. Don’t be surprised if this activity goes on for weeks.

II. Concentrated Harassment

Your efforts must focus on the animal causing the problem. For example if you are using noise it must be centered at where the animal is living. Failure to concentrate the harassment technique simply makes the animal get used to the problem because the problem will be everywhere. It’s like living in N.Y. City. You get used to the traffic noise.

III. Caustic Harassment

The harassment technique must be bothersome to the animal. The greater the discomfort to the animal the faster the technique will develop results. Warning: when you harass an animal there are no guarantees where it will decide to take up residence next. It is not out of the question that a raccoon, upon leaving your chimney will decide to enter your attic.>>

[Source: Internet Centre for Wildlife Damage Management, America, ^http://icwdm.org/ControlMethods/Hazing.aspx]

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Bevans in typical distress on Fraser Island

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An Ecologically Respectful Custodial Strategy for Fraser Island (by FIDO).

<<For more than 28 years, the Fraser Island Defenders Organization has been researching the management of Fraser Island to be in the best position to advocate the wisest use of its natural resources. The organization has a longer history associated with the management than any other organization, including the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and its predecessors.

The Fraser Island Defenders Organization has studied and considered the Draft Fraser Island dingo management strategy prepared by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and this submission is a response to that document released in April, 1999.

This organization has examined Draft Dingo Management Strategy and recommends some very important issues which need to be recognized and also some significant changes which need to be made to the actions.

1. FIDO wants the genetic status of Fraser Island dingoes recognized and protected.

2. Dingoes should be allowed to remain free to roam in the wild on Fraser Island.

3. The strategy should address all of the issues relating to the dingo population, including the characteristics, and the changes during the past century.

4. There is a need to review the population dynamics of Fraser Island dingoes to ensure that the island environment is managed to achieve an optimum dingo population. This needs to recognize that historically there was a much higher population on Fraser Island.

5. Dingoes should not suffer because of the intervention of humans which have induced changed behaviour.

6. A humane system of tagging should be established and all Fraser Island dingoes should be individually identified to provide more precise data on the actual population numbers and to assist in further research on animal behaviour.

7. The strategy should recognize how environmental changes during the last century on Fraser Island have impacted on dingoes and move to minimize these impacts.

8. The QPWS should develop a code of conduct which not only outlaws feeding of dingoes but also one which stops people encouraging dingoes to approach closer than 10 metres to be photographed thus encouraging them to loose their wariness of humans.

9. FIDO generally supports the first four recommendations of the Draft Dingo Management Strategy but is opposed to the recommendations for relocation, destruction, and culling.

1. Significant Omissions

There are a number of significant omission in the Draft Fraser Island dingo management strategy. The most important omission seems to be a clear objective for the strategy. Other omissions relate to the history of the dingo on Fraser Island, the significance and genetic purity of the dingoes on Fraser Island, the status of dingoes and the impact of environmental changes during the last 100 years.

1.1 The need for a clear objective: The Strategy should clearly state its objective. Without such an objective being clearly and publicly stated implementations of the final three recommendations could result in the extermination of the dingoes on Fraser Island. Is it to protect people from harassment by dingoes or is it to protect the animals? Is it to be an outcome that the genetic strain of Fraser Island dingo is only to be preserved in a zoo or behind barriers or is it to ensure that dingoes are to be allowed to roam wild on Fraser Island?

At present the objective could be construed only as stopping dingoes attacking humans.

The Fraser Island Defenders Organization believes the Final Management Strategy should carry wording such as:

“The biologically importance of the Fraser Island dingo strain is a value which must be preserved in as pure a form as possible. The fact that dingoes have lived on Fraser Island in the wild for thousands of years makes it important that the dingoes are allowed to roam as wild and unconfined animals on Fraser Island.

“The object of this strategy is predicated by the need to ensure that a viable wild population of dingos is maintained on Fraser Island.”

1.2.1 History: The bibliography of the Draft Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy fails to include any reference to any material relating to dingoes prior to 1994. The Draft Strategy doesn’t refer to any material from early in the Century which would give the current situation a different perspective. FIDO believes that this is a significant omission because it fails to give a proper perspective to the current dingo management problems on Fraser Island.

In 1976, FIDO began formally collecting and recording oral history from veterans whose memory of Fraser Island extended back as far as 1905 (Jules Tardent). This collection of historical perspectives has continued since. In all of FIDO’s questioning, there was never any mention of dingoes attacking humans. There were also many reports that dingoes were afraid of humans.

1.2.2 Past Populations: All accounts appear to support the claims that the dingo population on Fraser Island in the early part of the 20th Century was much higher. This needs to be compared with the current estimated “population of 25 to 30 packs peaks at approximately 200 animals during whelping in June-July” which is stated in the draft strategy.

1.2.3 Past population estimates: While all estimates are very subjective were likely to have greatly exceeded 1,000. In personal conversations Rollo Petrie puts the population around 1915 to 1922 as possibly up to 2,000. In “Early Days on Fraser Island — 1913-1922″, he provides a theory of why he believed that the dingo numbers built up rapidly when they no longer had to compete with the Aboriginal population of 2,000 to 3,000 for food.

Petrie refers to comparative number (pp 59-60). He refers to numbers: “(Available food) would not be as plentiful now if there was an equivalent number of dogs on Fraser Island, as in the early 1900’s. The few dingoes now live comfortably on scraps …” Further on he reports: “George Jackson on a trip to Indian Head, found a freshly shot stallion on the beach a few miles south of Indian Head. George … poisoned the carcass and then camped not far away. Next morning he had 100 scalps and not a great deal of the horse was left.”

1.2.4 Relevance of historical dingo population: The significance of the size of Fraser Island’s dingo population in the past is important because it reflects on the carrying capacity in the past. It would seem to indicate that environmental changes are responsible for a diminution of the island’s carrying capacity for dingoes.

Other aspects of dingo numbers are important because most geneticists would regard a population of 100 on an island, isolated from other genetic sources as a very risky. This will be discussed further below as that has major implications for management.

1.3.1 Significance of Fraser Island Dingoes: The significance of the genetic purity and the importance of the Fraser Island Dingo population is significantly understated in the Draft Strategy. The Draft (Para 2) only states, “Fraser Island dingoes … are likely to be the purest strain of dingoes on the eastern Australia seaboard.” Nowhere else does the strategy even refer to the fact that such an important gene pool needs to be protected and perpetuated.

It is FIDO’s submissions that the genetic significance of the Fraser Island dingo strain justifies all efforts to protect and preserve this gene pool.

1.3.2 Preserving the Gene Pool: Assuming that the population peak of 200 is accurate, this is a very small gene pool on which to base a program for further reducing that gene pool. It is more worrying in the context that on anecdotal evidence the population has significantly declined over the past 8 decades.

If the numbers drop below “100 animals when breeding recommences”, as the draft strategy states, then the viability of the gene pool is at risk.

The significance of this special genetic purity of the Fraser Island dingo seems to have been overlooked in the final 3 actions recommended in the draft management strategy which refer to relocation destroying and culling. FIDO is therefore strongly opposed to these three actions.

2. Keeping dingoes in the wild

2.1 Keeping Dingoes in the Wild: There is little acknowledgment that dingoes have a right to remain on Fraser Island in the wild. This is an a very important principle. It is not stated in any objective.

Dingoes have roamed free on Fraser Island probably since they first appeared in Australia which is at least thousands of years. Therefore, dingoes have a right to continue to roam freely over the island within the constraints of any wild animal which has learnt to be wary of other predators such as humans in their natural environment.

2.2 Saving a wild population in the wild: This organization does not want to see the Fraser Island dingo gene pool preserved only in wildlife parks or zoos or in special enclosures on Fraser Island. The establishment of large dingo free areas while it could be administratively convenient would be unacceptable. However, having said that this organization believes that it is important to try to ensure that dingoes do not become dependent on humans. Therefore they should be discouraged from areas where there is likely to be unnatural close interactions with humans. FIDO therefore would like to see more attempt made to deter dingoes from frequenting the settlements and camping areas such as Central Station and Lake McKenzie.

FIDO is vigourously opposed to any form of enclosure and artificial feeding programs. This is only encouraging a naturalized animals to behave unnaturally. Furthermore the Thylacines became extinct because they were hunters and would not accept being fed in a zoo. While dingoes are opportunistic feeders and will accept any handouts, it is still unnatural to hand feed them.

The loss of dingoes in the wild on Fraser Island would represent a much greater tragedy than the loss of the European wolves, because whereas wolves threatened humans in their domestic circumstances, Fraser Island dingoes only represent threats to humans in their recreation. We see the need to recognize and state these principles categorically in the final form of the management strategy.

Recommendation: In view of the above FIDO urges that a new section be written into the Strategy which addresses all of the issues relating to dingo population, the characteristics, the changes during the past century, and the need to maintain a viable population in the wild.

3. Population

We need a much better idea of the Fraser Island dingo population. We need to know the dynamics of reproduction and replacement rates, distribution of the population, the degree of interbreeding and an understanding of the reasons for any changes.

3.1 Accurate data needed: Because of the apparently critical size of the gene pool, there is an urgent need to have more precise information about the current population both in a macro and a micro sense.

More detailed work is needed to accurately determine:

(a) the current population in total,

(b) the distribution,

(d) the recruitment of new animals to the population on an annual basis and

(e) the identity of individual animals to that their behaviour can be observed.

3.2 Tagging: We believe that it is necessary to have a more precise estimate of numbers on Fraser Island even if this may mean tagging of every individual. This would then enable a better understanding of the numbers and the distribution and assist in identifying individuals.

The process of tagging also has other potential implications for dingo management which are discussed below. Depending on how it is done it could help reinstate a greater caution of humans and encourage them to keep their distance. This organization is aware that the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service tagged every crocodile in the East Alligator River as part of its program to better manage the largest single population of estuarine crocodiles in the world. If it was possible to tag every crocodile in this part of Kakadu 20 years ago, it should be possible to tag the estimated 100 dingoes on Fraser Island before whelping. The results of that tagging which was done almost 20 years ago continues to yield valuable research results in helping understand the behaviour of those animals. We believe that crocodiles are a more dangerous and difficult animal to catch and tag than dingoes and therefore this should be a priority task to any ongoing research program.

Recommendation: A humane system of tagging should be established. All dingoes on Fraser Island should be tagged to enable them to be readily identified. The objective of tagging would be also to provide more precise data on the actual population numbers and to assist in further research on animal behaviour.

4. Environmental Changes

The Draft dingo management strategy makes no reference to the environmental changes which have occurred on Fraser Island during the last century. A reference to old photographs and Petrie’s Fraser Island memoirs will show that there have been very significant environmental changes to the whole island during the past 80 years. Petrie’s observations are confirmed by all people who knew Fraser Island before the 1930s. These observations are also borne out by photographic evidence.

It is FIDO’s belief that these environmental changes have very significantly impacted on the dingo food sources.

4.1 Understorey changes: In “Early Days on Fraser Island 1913-1922”, Petrie described a number of changes. He described the lack of understorey on the island. Evidence of this is demonstrated by the number of horses which the island accommodated. Petrie estimated numbers as high as 2000.

With the change in the fire regime the understorey has caused not only the loss of grass but also the loss of a number of small mammals such as bandicoots. For example, “Bandicoots were fairly plentiful in the 1915 to 1920s in the Wanggoolba area,” Petrie said.

4.2 Changes to the traditional Fire Regime: FIDO attributes the loss of habitat of small mammals, which would have been traditional dingo food, to the changes away from the traditional Aboriginal burning regime. There is strong evidence to link the growth of the dense woody understorey, and in turn the reduction in small mammal population, (and in turn the decline of Fraser Island’s dingo population) with the absence of fire particularly in the tall forest where fire was deliberately excluded for more than a century.

Recommendation: FIDO believes that Fire Management Plan for Fraser Island to return the island to a habitat which is more suitable for small mammals and in turn for dingoes should be developed and implemented as a matter of the highest priority

4.3 Tradition hunting on beaches: Petrie also said that then dingoes used to eat wongs (eugaries) from the beach and fractured shells were regularly found in dingo droppings. It is apparent the use of the beach by so much beach traffic has denied this source of food to dingoes and / or they have lost this traditional hunting skill.

FIDO believes that some more research should be undertaken to identify ways which would encourage dingoes back to this traditional food sources such as wongs from the beach.

5. Modifying the Animal Behaviour

The major problem seems to result from the changed behaviour of animals to humans. FIDO contends that to a large extent this changed behaviour is human induced. In this section, FIDO focusses on what needs to be done to modify animal behaviour.

5.1 Domestic Animals Attacked: Petrie and others referred to the fact that domestic animals were vulnerable to dingo attacks. “I have seen working bullocks bogged in the peat swamps. … The dingoes started eating them from the rear.” (p59) and “… my horse Moses was freshly bogged and already dingoes were circling around him…” (p 60) The writer has recorded oral history of dingos cornering brumbies in the surf. There are many stories of dingoes attacking and eating domestic dogs in the 1970s until domestic dogs were banned from Fraser Island. However, despite the predatory behaviour of dingoes towards other mammals, there are no records or reports of dingoes representing threats to humans on Fraser Island.

5.2 Loss of Fear of Humans: FIDO attributes the recent behaviour of dingoes to the fact that dingoes have lost their fear or wariness of humans. That the change dingo attitude is apparent from this recorded Petrie anecdote: “Recently when I camped out on the island, I heard something close by. I sat up in my swag. In the moonlight, I saw two dingoes about 15 feet away. I picked up a bit of wood and tossed it towards them. The dogs trotted to the stick and smelt it. It was a far cry from the days when they would have fled at my first move.” (p 60) Similar stories were reported by other early visitors to Fraser Island.

5.3 Problem Not Confined to Fraser Island: This behaviour change has only happened in the last fifteen years but the boldness of the dingoes continues to grow manifesting itself into an increasingly serious problem. The problem is coincidental with changes to dingo behaviour in other Australian National Parks with significant dingo populations. This was demonstrated by the Azaria Chamberlain case at Uluru. However, similar patterns are now being observed at Kakadu and in Jabiru township where dingoes refuse to be chased away as the writer observed as recently as February, 1999.

5.4 Feeding is Not the Only Problem: The Draft Management Strategy makes a case for feeding dingoes as the main reason that dingoes have lost their fear. FIDO has reason to believe that it is not only feeding which has transformed dingo behaviour. Dingoes have been fed by humans on Fraser Island for at least 50 years in the writers experience. Ignoring the past history is to overlook the underlying cause for this quite dramatic change in behaviour from one of wariness of humans to one of boldness.

5.5 Tagging to aid research: As mentioned above, if there are only 100 animals now left on Fraser Island, then tagging every animal is not an insurmountable problem and it will greatly assist identifying rogue animals and in studying animal behaviour. It should be noted that on Maria Island where detailed studies are made of the Tasmanian native hens, every animal in the vicinity of Darlington is tagged and these tags are observed to identify individuals when studying behaviour. The whole estuarine crocodile population in the east Alligator River section of Kakadu National Park was also caught and tagged.

5.6 Tagging to Discourage Approaching Humans: Normally animals who are trapped are very wary of approaching humans again. This is particularly true of cats, foxes and dingoes. However, some animals welcome the gentle treatment after trapping and back up again and again to be caught. The trapping must be done humanely but in ways which dramatically increases the wariness of approaching humans. Each animal should be trapped and tagged in ways which subsequently discourage them from approaching too close to humans.

5.7 Destroying Rogues: As indicated above, this organization is opposed to the destruction of rogues. We are more alarmed because by our estimates more than 30 animals have been destroyed over recent years. This great loss to the population has not diminished the occurrence of dingo attacks on humans.

While destruction of rogues is a recognized short term solution such methodology should have been carrying out with more foresight. For example if others in the pack saw a rogue approaching a human or the human approaching the rogues and then seeing the rogue die, this would be soon communicated widely amongst dingos. Instead, in some cases such as following a Happy Valley attack, whole packs were eliminated.

Nothing was gained from this slaughter other than creating a territory soon taken up by other animals which were not witness to the killing of their reasons. Thus, FIDO can’t support such a counter-productive spontaneous reaction.

5.8 Identifying Humans with Unpleasant Outcomes: It is important that when reprisals do occur all animals are able to identify humans with the unwelcome outcome. This will help to reinstate the wariness of humans.

While aversion baits might be important to discourage scavenging for food scraps, this program is unlikely to ensure that dingoes to keep their distance from humans or even attacking them. However, we accept that aversion baiting may reduce scavenging.

5.9 Use of repellents: This organization supports more research to find and develop more effective dingo ultrasonic deterrents. If this is successful they should be used at all significant places where humans congregate such as Lake McKenzie, Central Station and the urban centres to try to keep dingoes out of these places.

6. Changing Human Behaviour

The Dingo-Human interaction part of the Strategy should identify the two distinct aspects of the problem. Just as important as causing dingo behaviour to revert to its previous pattern, the public must be better educated by both carrot and stick to recognize that every human has a responsibility to ensure that dingoes keep their distance.

6.1 Camera enticements: FIDO considers that the most overlooked factor has been the fact that dingoes have been increasingly enticed to come closer and pose for the cameras. This enticing of dingoes to approach humans without fear is quite deliberately saying to the animals that they have nothing to fear from humans. FIDO believes that this is even more subtle than feeding the animals as a form of changing animal behaviour and it should be stopped. The change in dingo behaviour to humans seems to occur only on national park and areas where there is no threats to the animals. The increase in the frequency of photography of the animals seems to have contributed significantly.

Recommendation: The QPWS should develop a code of conduct which not only outlaws feeding of dingoes but also one which stops people encouraging dingoes to approach closer than 10 metres to be photographed. This should be enforced with vigour.

6.2 The Blind Eye: It is true that feeding has been a factor but it is also true that a blind eye has been frequently turned towards the feeding of dingoes. On every occasion the author has spent more than 5 days he has observed someone feeding dingoes.

FIDO therefore support the recommendation in the Draft Dingo Management Strategy that feeding will be prohibitted. We just hope it will be pursued with more determination than we have observed in the past.

6.3 More active Interest from the QPWS: This organization also believes that more concern needs to be taken of the reports of dingo attacks on humans. In 1996, the writer’s sister who has been visiting Fraser Island for more than 30 years was subject to an unprovoked attack by an animal on the beach as she was walking alone near the surf edge. She reported it to the Eurong Visitor’s Centre to a completely disinterested staff and she is not even sure that any record was made of her report.

7. Destruction, Culling and Relocation

This Organization supports the first four recommendations of the Draft Dingo Management Strategy in principle with some modifications and revision in the light of the above submissions. We particularly believe that more research is warranted to understand the behaviour patterns of particular animals.

FIDO though is opposed to the last three recommendation options in the Draft Fraser Island dingo management strategy, relocation, destruction, and culling. These have all been used regularly over the last five years without any significant benefit in improved dingo behaviour. In fact the dingo behaviour has if anything changed to the dingoes becoming even bolder. While such measures may assuage the injured feelings of the public immediately after any attack by dingoes on humans, it has been demonstrated over the years that they provide no long term improvement in animal behaviour.

Therefore on practical as well as humane grounds, FIDO is opposed to these measures. However, more significantly, in view of the size of the dingo gene pool on Fraser Island of just 100 breeding animals, we do not believe that these measures can be justified on conservation grounds. The preservation of genetic diversity must be one of the foremost objectives of the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. Thus we are opposed to further reducing the gene pool of Fraser Island’s pure dingoes.

The Fraser Island dingo should not become like the European bears, wolves, and an number of other wild creatures which culled to the point of extinction outside zoos and a few isolated populations because they competed with human populations.>>

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Ed: When will government grow up and become wise, accept its stewardship, plan long term and slow down?

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Tags: Ban 4WDs from Fraser Island, Bevan Tourism, bevans, Commercial tourism, Dingo, Dingo culling, eco-tourism, Fraser Island, Fraser Island dingo, Fraser Island World Heritage, Inky, K'gari, Queensland Government, Queensland's Tourism Industry, tourism exploitation, Tourism Impacts, UNESCO, wildlife hazing, Wildlife-based Tourism
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Fraser Island Hoon Tourism out of control

Friday, August 3rd, 2012

Hoon Tourism

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Tourism on Queensland’s Fraser Island is worse than ‘uncontrolled’, it is out of control.

Any Tom, Dick or Harry can get a permit for their 4WD online and take it across on one of the barges to Fraser Island so they can speed along the beaches and hoon over the dunes at their leisure. The hoons know that there is a police station near Kingfisher Resort, but manned by only a few and to the hoons Fraser Island is a free-for-all hoot by day and piss-up by night.

Where are the statistics on tourists fined, evicted, loss of licence for hooning on Fraser Island? After all, the allowed speed limit on the Seventy-Mile Beach is 80kph! Where else in Australia can hoons, hoon along the beach at 80kph? Who’s to stop them going faster?

Fraser Island is alcohol fueled

And before a hoon party even arrives on Fraser Island, they have plenty of choices where to stock up on booze. Driving north from Brisbane into Maryborough, there’s the Carriers Arms Hotel, White Lion Hotel, Westside Cellars, Dan Murphy’s and Liquor Stax.

Unlimited drinking anywhere on Fraser Island

At the 4WD Barge ramp at River Heads there is ‘Cellarbrations’ or at Hervey Bay there is the Kondari Hotel, and a choice of two Liquorwise outlets (odd name) plus another Dan Murphy’s. But fear not, if once on Fraser Island, hoons have run dry, then without having to leave the island, they can restock on booze at the general store at Eurong Beach Resort or at Kingfisher Bay Resort.

Kingfisher Resport, Fraser Island – promoting partying on Fraser Island

Source: ^http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/winanofficeparty/

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Chrysler’s Jeep Australia brand currently promotes its 4WD vehicles for beach usage

In January 2012, Fraser Island Police charged a 48-year-old Australian Capital Territory man, seated in the front passenger seat, with drink driving (in charge of a motor vehicle) after he allegedly registered a blood alcohol reading of 0.113 percent. The same month Fraser Island Police stopped a 4WD on Eastern Beach, Eurong when they allegedly noticed a 12-year-old boy driving the vehicle, with a 14-year-old boy in the rear passenger seat unrestrained.

Australia Day long weekend and Easter tend to be the main lure for hoons to Fraser Island. Fraser Island’s hoon tourism has such a reputation that Queensland Police regularly hold traffic enforcement operations on Fraser Island for the end of school holidays and Australia Day.

In April 2012, a police blitz on Fraser Island led to more than 100 tickets being issued over the Easter holiday period. Maryborough Superintendent Mark Stiles said speeding and failing to wear a seatbelt contributed to the bulk of offences..

[Source: ‘Police target Fraser Island hoons‘, by Rose Brennan, The Courier-Mail, 20120416, ^http://www.couriermail.com.au/traffichotspots/police-target-island-hoons/story-fne60fhm-1226327209010; http://qpsmedia.govspace.gov.au/2012/01/23/drink-driving-fraser-island/]

Jeep Australia’s current advertising message ‘Don’t Hold Back’ showing beach fun with their Jeep 4WDs

In December 2010, Fraser Island Hoon Tourism’s reputation saw a drunk 32-year old American tourist tragically drowned. He was taking a midnight dip after drinking heavily near the Cornwalls Camping Ground, on the eastern side of the island, six kilometres north of Eurong at about 4.30am. Some responsible tour group! The American man from Nevada in the United States was travelling with a backpacking tour group and had been drinking heavily before he decided to go for a swim about midnight..

[Source: ‘Dead tourist found on Fraser Island‘, by Marissa Calligeros, Brisbane Times, 20101210, ^http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/dead-tourist-found-on-fraser-island-20101210-18rrl.html]

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Jeep Australia advertising advocating the hoon element in the mud

In December 2009, a 4WD ‘troop carrier’ hired by Japanese tourists rolled on Fraser Island’s Eastern Beach near Dundabara killing one Japanese tourist and injuring seven others aged between 20 and 30 years of age. The crash site was close to the location where two British backpackers died in April 2009 when their 4WD also rolled on the beach.

On Thursday and Friday, Transport Department safety inspectors were forced to turn around almost half of the hire vehicles making their way to Fraser Island from River Heads at Hervey Bay and from Inskip Point.

Of the 50 vehicles inspected, 17 were refused because of faulty brakes, faulty tyres, nine vehicles were overloaded and too heavy, while a further nine were ruled out completely because they were “defective”.

The 4WD Hire Industry for Fraser Island is clearly also out of control.

Radio Collars should be fitted to Fraser Island Tourists

Photo © Jennifer Parkhurst

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Hoon Tourism is out of control. Between 2004-2009 there were 106 casualties on Fraser Island from 4WD hooning..

[Source: ‘One dead, seven injured in Fraser Island 4WD rollover‘, by Tony Moore, Brisbane Times, ^http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/one-dead-seven-injured-in-fraser-island-4wd-rollover-20091213-kq2t.html]

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Fraser island 4×4 4wd stuck lol 100 series landcruiser

Watch Video: ^http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFqYCsUu56g

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The Australian Government is supposed to be the custodian for the World Heritage Area that is ‘Fraser Island‘.

Yet in it’s laziness, it has delegated that custodial responsibility to the Queensland Government, and like most state governments in Australia, the Queensland Govermnment is under-funded to be able to adequately execute its management responsibilities to properly protect Fraser Island’s World Heritage values.

Fraser Island was inscribed on the World Heritage List by UNESCO in 1992 in recognition of its natural values – the island’s “exceptional natural beauty“. The two criteria upon which the island was listed were World Heritage Natural Criteria (ii) and ( iii ).

Natural Criteria (ii): ‘Outstanding examples representing significant ongoing geological processes’
Natural Criteria (iii): ‘Outstanding examples representing on-going biological processes’

Fraser Island’s long beaches and dune heathlands, its majestic tall Turpentine rainforests and many freshwater lakes and swamps provide vital habitat for over 230 species of birds including migratory wading birds and the endangered ground parrot. It is home to frogs, bats and flying foxes and the top order predator is the Dingo. The dingo population on the island is regarded as the most pure strain of dingoes remaining in eastern Australia.

Fraser Island’s Seventy-Mile Beach – An encouraged Hoon Mecca!

(Photo by Tourism Queensland)

The whole of the island is part of Great Sandy National Park and is supposed to protected under the Nature Conservation Act 1992 and the Recreation Areas Management Act 2006 to the low water mark. But that is on paper perhaps to keep UNESCO appeased in its Paris headquarters on the other side of the planet. Whereas the onground reality is that the Queensland Government’s Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) is more focused on exploiting the island for its tourism potential and revenue.

Dingoes and Tourists do not mix

Photo © Jennifer Parkhurst

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The Recreation Areas Management Act 2006 is useless in respect to 4WD users. Clause 109 ‘Unlawful use of motor vehicles’ states: ‘A person must not take a motor vehicle into a recreation area or drive or ride a motor vehicle in a recreation area unless the taking, driving or riding is authorised by a vehicle access permit, commercial activity permit or commercial activity agreement.’ Any licenced driver can get a vehicle access permit for Fraser Island.

Permits to drive on Fraser Island are unlimited and cost around just $40 per vehicle and can be booked online. So with four yobs on board, $40 is equivalent to the cost of just two beer cans each, which clearly has not proven to be a serious hoon hurdle.

There is no shortage of barges servicing Fraser Island from the mainland mainly by Fraser Island Barges, three times a day from two locations – Inskip Point and River Heads.

Camping permits are similarly cheap. So Fraser Island has become a free-for-all, encouraged by Labor Government visitation maximising policy and facilitated by commercial tourism operators, such as the ones hiring out the 4WD’s. And so the hoons are attracted in groups to party hard on the island.

Ever since 1992, when Fraser Island was first inscribed on the World Heritage List, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre of the IUCN at the time summarised:

“The Effects of heavy 4WD traffic on the beaches have unknown impacts on littoral (shoreline) fauna and control measures may soon be needed. The legal status of the portion of Fraser Island that is not a national park is under review and many changes in favour of conservation are anticipated.”

Since then the only changes have been more tourists under successive predominantly Queensland Labor Governments -under the premierships of Wayne Goss, Peter Beatie and Anna Bligh.

4WD Tourism out of control

This young Dingo mother of seven pups, her tagged right ear permanently flopped over, searches the beach and tourist vehicles for fish offal.

(Photo by Nick Alexander)

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Tourism and Dingoes don’t mix

Last Saturday (20120728), a group of tourists got drunk on at the K’Gari Education Centre, north of Happy Valley near Eli Creek on Fraser Island. One of them, a drunk German 23-year old man stumbling inebriated way from a tour group about 2am Saturday. As he slept it off on a track, he was attacked by at least two wild Dingoes, native to the island.

July 2012: A German tourist is in hospital being treated for serious injuries after being attacked by a dingo.

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What was the response by the DERM Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) Regional Manager, Ross Belcher?

“Patrols will be increased…The attack would not bring changes to the way dingoes were managed, although a current review might lead to safer interactions.”

In contrast, Island World Heritage Area community advisory committee member Mike West said the dingoes were probably just messing around.

“If they weren’t messing around, he’d be dead,” he said. K’Gari was a problem because the local pack had substantial interaction with humans and appeared tame to many backpackers.

“As long as dingoes feel comfortable with people, there’ll always will be trouble,” Mr West said. “This only happens on Fraser where lots of people interact with dingoes. It appears rangers are going to have to try harder to get the message across.”.

In the past 12 months to June, ten people have been reported bitten by Dingoes. DERM has seen fit to then kill three Dingoes, like a linch mob. So much for protected World heritage. The World Heritage management culture in Queensland is that World Heritage is a brand designed to lure tourists, so it is all about maximising visitation tourists come first; whereas wildlife are fair game.

[Source: ‘The drunken, sleeping tourist was lucky to survive Fraser Island dingo attack‘, by Brian Williams, The Courier-Mail, 20120730, ^http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/the-drunken-sleeping-tourist-was-lucky-to-survive-fraser-island-dingo-attack/story-e6freoof-1226438003277]

Fraser Island Party Hard Bus Tours

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Dingo Linching Record

In 1980, when a dingo was reported having taken baby Azaria Chamberlain from a tourist campers tent near Uluru, a self-righteous testosterone-fueled media went into a frenzy. Dingos were demonised and persecuted, until the media turned their persecution on to the mother for the next 30 years. At the time, as a public gesture, the Northern Territory Government went on a kneejerk dingo linching crusade, culling 31 dingoes around Uluru. Chief Ranger at Uluru between 1968 and 1985, Derek Roff, had previously warned of the treat of dingoes to tourists. Roff had also advocated culling dingoes, but that was 1980, a tourist-centric 1980.

Azaria Chamberlain’s revised death Certificate 32 years later

Australia in denial for 32 years that a Dingo could have killed a baby

In 1994, after a young child was mauled by a dingo on Fraser Island, the media called for dingo linching. The Queensland Government, championing tourism safety on the island ordered the linching. During the following six years 103 dingoes were culled.

In 2001, a nine-year-old schoolboy, Clinton Gage, was fatally mauled by a dingo on Fraser Island. Predictably there was another media outcry, and a further 32 dingoes were culled within a matter of a few weeks.

The dingo was demonised as if a feral pig or a wild feral dog. DERM’s baby-boomer management perpetuated a tourist-centric mindset, adopting standard management practice to kill any ‘aggressive’ dingo or a dingo that ‘shows no fear of humans’. And this organisation is the custodian of Fraser Island World Heritage and its fauna and flora? Some parts of Australian society remain quite backward.

The way the Island is being loosely managed by DERM, it is only a matter of time before there is an other Dingo attack, and with all the children and infants brought on to the island, it is only a matter of time before there is another Azaria Episode. The only ethical sympathy warranted will be for the Dingo.

Earlier this month, Environment Minister Andrew Powell appointed noted University of Queensland ecologist Hugh Possingham to oversee a review of the Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy by consultancy EcoSure. Let’s hope that Powell recognises that wild animals and tourists don’t mix.

“No longer will Australia be able to say that dingoes are not dangerous and only attack if provoked.”

~ Mrs Creighton-Chamberlain 2012

[Source: ‘Coroner finds dingo took baby’, by Clementine Norton, 20120612, ^http://www.frasercoastchronicle.com.au/story/2012/06/12/evidence-clears-lindy-chamberlain/]

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Queensland Government only interested in Fraser Island tourism values

Under the previous Bligh Labor Government, the attitude towards National Parks like Fraser Island was all about tourism. Under Bligh Labor’s strategic plan labelled ‘Q2: Tomorrow’s Queensland‘, national parks across Queensland were not afforded protection under a conservation strategy, but relegated instead under Bligh Labor’s ‘Queensland Outdoor Recreation Strategic Framework 2010‘. And who better to give the job of running DERM to, but one’s husband. In Queensland, like paraochial Tasmania, political nepotism is rife. Premier Anna Bligh’s husband, Greg Withers was in charge of DERM’s Office of Climate Change since its inception four years ago.

DERM Director for 4 years, Greg Withers, with his wife Labor Premier Anna Bligh after her election defeat.

Photo: Harrison Saragossi

^http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/blighs-husband-cleans-out-his-desk-20120327-1vvo1.html

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A visit to the DERM website on Fraser Island shows that the focus is all for the 4WD tourist:

DERM website all about tourism on Fraser Island

^http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/parks/fraser/index.html

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This is DERM’s official map for Fraser Island – seems all about tourists doesn’t it? The map is probably not sent to UNESCO in Paris.

^http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/parks/fraser/pdf/fraser-island-map.pdf

[>Read Larger Map]

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Fraser Island’s Dingo population shrinking

So DERM is allowing free-for-all tourism across Fraser Island. It is estimated that around half a million visitors, many from overseas, visit Fraser Island each year.

How can this be sustainable? It simply isn’t – certainly not for the native Dingoes. Apparently, one of Fraser Island’s promoted attractions besides the beaches and sand dunes is the thrill of seeing a dingo ‘in the wild’. So the Fraser Island tourism marketing message is to see dingos. How bloody sad that colonial persecution has created rarety that is has become a tourism attraction? It is comparable to the Tasmanian warped fascination with the Thylacene that last century their forefathers were only too happy to cull into extinction.

Fraser Island residents, tour operators and animal welfare groups have reported the rapidly shrinking dingo population to DERM in 2009.

Eigh years prior, in 2001, DERM had compiled its Dingo Management Strategy. The document may have well been written by the New South Wales Game Council itching for target practice. DERM’s Dingo Management Strategy was anathema to the World Heritage protection. The strategy had a mindset of ‘Pest Control’ with the prescribed culling of dingoes, where tourist could do no wrong and travel freely. If the dingo caused a problem its was shot. The only human controls were token ‘public education’. Dingoes were trapped, relocated and fenced away from free-roaming tourists.

DERM: “..when authorised, the trapping and destruction of problem dingoes.”

In 2009, an authority on the Dingo and former CSIRO researcher, Dr Laurie Corbett, was called in to review the current strategy and respond to the public concerns about falling dingo numbers on Fraser Island.

Those concerned about the fate of Fraser Island dingoes – including researcher Dr Luke Leung from Queensland University – now fear the population has been reduced to around 100 animals and their genetic viability over the long term is being compromised.

At Eurong village (Fraser Island) tourists wilfully disregard DERM signs

and walk across an electrified grid which has filled with sand.
(Photo by Nick Alexander)

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DERM’s Dingo Management Strategy with its prescribed kneejerk response to any dingo ‘identified as dangerous’ by killing it, simply chose to ignore known dingo pack behaviour. Killing an adult dingo can dislocate the dingo pack structure. The pack relies on these elders to maintain the social order, and help teach the younger animals how to hunt.

Tim Rivers, a tour operator who has been involved with visitors to the area for more than 30 years, is alarmed at the now low levels of dingo sightings on the island, and suggests that the official figures of dingo numbers are overstated. He believes many more dingoes have been culled than the DERM Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service are prepared to admit, and is concerned the kills have not always been clean and humane. Rivers claims having seen ‘animals with gunshot wounds in shoulders, hindquarters and even facial wounds’.

Part of the management strategy is to keep dingoes off the beach and away from tourist areas by means of ‘hazing’. This involves attempting to scare dingoes away by shanghai-ing them with pellets. Opponents of the management plan feel this practice is cruel, and consider that it can only add to the dingoes’ mistrust of humans and heighten their antagonism.

Another contentious issue is that of ear-tagging dingoes on the island. Dingo pups as young as four months have been trapped and marked with a tag in their ear. Opponents of this practice consider it cruel and debilitating. The ear sometimes becomes infected and the tag may cause the pup’s ear to flop over. This impedes its ability to discriminate the direction from which a sound is coming – something critical when the pup is learning to hunt for food. In some cases the trapping of an animal in order to tag it has also led to a leg being damaged or broken, further limiting its ability to survive ‘in the wild’.

It is hard to reconcile the ear-tagging and ‘hazing’ of dingoes with the QP&WS’s ‘cardinal principle’ of park management: ‘to provide, to the greatest possible extent, for the permanent preservation of the area’s natural condition and the protection of the area’s cultural resources and values’. The activities, apart from their potentially inhumane aspects, are seemingly at odds with the principle of regarding dingoes as wild, native animals and interfering with them as little as possible.

In his 2009 audit of the dingo management strategy, Dr Laurie Corbett defends the issue of tagging so that rangers can identify a ‘problem’ animal easily. He recommends the continued use of slingshots and ‘rat-guns’ as the most effective ‘hazing’ methods, despite the fact many dingoes now recognise the rangers’ vehicles and will flee from them on sight.

Some of the long-term residents of the island point out that there were few dingo problems during the time of Forest Department control. For years, the dingoes were allowed to roam freely through the resorts and small settlements and the feeding of food scraps was actually encouraged. Now the QP&WS has erected a ‘dingo-proof’ fence with electrified ‘cattle grids’ around some of the settlements. The one surrounding the community of Eurong cost $1 million, requires constant maintenance and is still not 100 per cent effective in keeping dingoes out.

The real problem, according to long-time resident Judi Daniel, is the visitors’ lack of common sense. Many of the dingo ‘incidents’ that have led to the destruction of the dingoes involve unsupervised children. ‘Why must a dingo die due to visitors’ stupidity?’ she asks.

Tourist children out of control on Fraser Island

Despite the efforts of the pro-dingo alliance, there are still many in the community who consider that ‘the only good dingo is a dead dingo’. The spectre of another attack on a child led one former Queensland postman, writing to the Fraser Coast Chronicle, to argue that: ‘One child’s life is worth more than 100 dingoes.’

This dingo, with a bullet wound in its neck, was discovered by a tour operator in January last year at Lake Mckenzie.
(Photo by Caroline Hanger)

With feelings like this common in the wider community, those who are striving to achieve a better deal for the Fraser Island dingo are facing an uphill battle. Terry Harper, the government’s Senior Director, Marine Parks, has just announced another ‘population dynamics’ study, but this is still in its ‘planning and scoping’ stage, with no time-frame set for its completion.

Researcher Dr Luke Leung believes that, with only six or seven packs left on the island, the time has come for a more ethical and humane approach. For instance, he says, ‘problem’ animals could be relocated from the island to a breeding facility in order to maintain the gene pool of this relatively pure strain of dingo.

In the meantime, Humane Society International has called for an immediate end to the culling of dingoes on Fraser Island and for better education of tourists visiting the island on how to interact with the dingoes.’

[Source: ‘Concerns heightening for Fraser Island’s dingoes’, by Nick Alexander, 2009, Ecos Magazine, ^http://www.ecosmagazine.com/?paper=EC151p18]

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World Heritage is primarily about recognition and respect for the natural world, not about tourism branding, exploitation and maximisiing visitation.

In the two decades that the Queensland Government has held the custodian reigns of Fraser Island, it has failed its custodial responsibilities utterly. State Governments cannot be trusted with National Park custodianship.

World Heritage and National Park management can only be entrusted at a national level. Fraser Island’s World Heritage needs to be managed at national jurisdiction where it can be effected properly to the spirit of World Heritage protection and conservation principles and supported with national resources – skills, and funding. Fraser Island Dingoes should be allowed to remain free to roam in the wild in their natural habitat without the incursion of tourists – hoons o otherwise. Tourism on Fraser Island has proven to be exploitative and a key threatening process to the future survival of Fraser Island’s top order predactor. Dingoes should not suffer because of the intervention of humans.

Australia’s remnant pure Dingos deserve humanity’s respect before they befall the same extinction fate as the Thylcene.

It is time to ban all tourism from Fraser Island and to dedicate the island as the world’s only surviving sanctuary for the Pure Dingo.

Token Signage

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Related ‘Habitat Advocate’ Articles:

>Dingo Ecology deserves respect on Fraser Is

>Remove all ferals from Fraser Island

>Dingo: Australia’s ancient apex predator at risk

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Click to watch Video: ^http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=R6O5GljsIxo

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Tags: Bligh Labor Government, Department of Environment and Resource Management, DERM, DERM Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, Don't Hold Back, Eurong Beach Resort, Fraser Island, Fraser Island 4WD, Fraser Island 4x4, Fraser Island alcohol, Fraser Island dingo, Fraser Island tourism, Great Sandy National Park, Hoon Tourism, Jeep Australia, Kingfisher Bay Resort, Police target Fraser Island hoons, UNESCO, World Heritage Fraser Island
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Dingo: Australia’s ancient apex predator at risk

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

Pure Dingo

(Canis lupus ssp. dingo)

Rare and ‘Vulnerable’ on Fraser Island, Queensland

The Dingo is possibly as old as the last Ice Age

The earliest archaeological evidence for dingoes in Australia, indicates that the arrival of dingoes in Australia can be dated back to about 18, 000 years BP (before present), based upon mitochondrial DNA data collected by scientists from The Royal Society. [Source: ^http://savefraserislanddingoes.com/pdf/Evolution%20of%20the%20Dingo.pdf, [>Read Report (512kb) ]

Significantly, 18,000 BP was when the last Ice Age ended in Australia, referred to as the Last Glacial Period (Glacial Maximum) when much of the world was cold, dry, and inhospitable. It is the geological epoch in world evolution known as the Pleistocene Epoch, which in archaeology corresponds to the end of the human Paleolithic Age. At this time, Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania were one land mass called Sahulland. Note, this is not to be confused with ‘Gondwanaland‘, which existed between about 510 to 180 million years ago (Mya).

Sahulland or just ‘Sahul‘ was the name chosen by archaeologists at a conference in 1975 [Allen, J.; J. Golson and R. Jones (eds) (1977). Sunda and Sahul: Prehistorical studies in Southeast Asia, Melanesia and Australia’]. Other names offered include ‘Australasia‘ and ‘Greater Australia‘, and this larger land mass forms the basis of Australia’s Continental Shelf, half of which is less than 50 metres deep under the Torres Strait to New Guinea and Bass Strait to Tasmania.

Evolutionary global warming melted the glacias and so rose sea levels, which overflowed the interconnecting lowlands and separated the continent into today’s low-lying arid to semi-arid mainland and the two mountainous islands of New Guinea and Tasmania. Not surprisingly, flora and fauna across these long separate lands have a comparable biota. Since Papua New Guinea and Australia were connected via a land-bridge until 6,000 years ago, travelling from one to the other would have been possible.

DNA-analysis has shown that New Guinea Singing Dogs have a genetic line back to Australian dingos. Genetic analysis reported in March 2010 by Australian Geneticist Dr. Alan Wilton (1953-2011), from the UNSW School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences found the mtDNA-type A29 among Australian dingoes concluded overwhelmingly that genetically, the Australian Dingo and the New Guinea Singing Dog are closely related to each other.

Australian Geneticist Dr. Alan Wilton (1953-2011)

an expert on Australian Pure Dingos

Dr Alan Wilton’s study paper published in the journal Nature suggests that those two breeds are the most closely related to wolves and may be most like the original domesticated dog as it was across Asia and the Middle East thousands of years ago, according to one of the 37 authors of the study, making both Australia’s dingo and the New Guinea Singing Dog possibly the world’s oldest dog breeds.

“This paper examines the domestication of the dog from the wild wolf using genetic differences,” Dr Wilton says. “48,000 sites in the dog genome were examined in hundreds of wolves, almost a thousand dogs from 85 modern breeds of dog and several ancient dog breeds. “The data suggest most dogs were domesticated in the Middle East, which was the cradle of agriculture 10,000 of years ago, rather than in Asia as had been suggested previously.

“It also shows dingoes, which have been separated from other breeds of dog in Australia for the past 5,000 years, are the most distinct dog group with most similarity to wolves.”

The dingo and New Guinea Singing Dog stand out as being most different from all other breeds of dogs and closer to wolves than other breeds.

To gather all of the results from many dog breeds and wolves from many locations, a worldwide effort was mounted. Dr Wilton and Jeremy Shearman – from the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences and the Ramaciotti Centre for Gene Function Analysis at UNSW – have been working on dingoes and methods to differentiate between pure dingoes and crosses between domestic dogs and dingoes. They contributed the genetic data from seven dingoes, which is a small amount of data but makes a large contribution to the paper. The data from all samples was analysed together at Cornell University and UCLA.

[Source: ‘Dingo may be world’s oldest dog‘, by Bob Beale, 20100318, ^http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/news/dingo-may-be-world-s-oldest-dog/]

New Guinea Singing Dog

(Canis lupus familiaris hallstomi)

An ancient genetically pure dog breed with links to the Australian Dingo

Further biotechnical research published in September 2011 by The Royal Society (UK) has found direct genetic links between ancient Polynesian dogs of South China, Mainland Southeast Asia and Indonesia to the extent that the Dingo has been found to be a direct descendant species dating back to 18,000 BP. The oldest dog remains found in the world are fragments of a dog’s skull and teeth discovered in a cave in Switzerland dating back more than 14,000 years BP, so the dingo is 4000 years older that this.

Genetic study by Klutsch and Savolainen in 2011 concluded that South China was the probable source population for Dingoes and Singing Dogs dating the arrival of dingoes in Australia between 4,640 years ago and as far back as 18,100 years ago. They find “a clear indication that Polynesian dogs as well as dingoes and NGSDs trace their ancestry back to South China through Mainland Southeast Asia and Indonesia.

[Source: ‘Reflections on the Society of Dogs and Men’, in Dog Law Reporter, 20111108, ^http://doglawreporter.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/canoe-conquests-of-western-pacific-who.html]

Original Natural Distribution of the Dingoes Ancestors

[Source: ^http://www.naturalhistoryonthenet.com/Mammals/dingo.htm]

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The Dingo is an integral apex predator across Australian ecology

As with other canids, over thousands of years the Dingo is a descendent of the wolf (Canis lupus).

Eastern Grey Wolf

(Canis lupus lycaon)

[Source: Long live the big, bad, beautiful, snarling wolf, they are wild animals!

^http://www.lovethesepics.com/2012/03/whos-afraid-of-the-big-bad-beautiful-wolf-56-pics/]

Yet after 18,000 years, the Australia Pure Dingo has evolved into a pure unique subspecies in its own right – ‘Canis lupus ssp. dingo’ [ssp. = subspecies]

The Dingo is not a breed of dog, but a distinct subspecies of ancient wolf (Canid lupus).

Domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are a separate subpecies of wolf, and of course domestic dogs have multiple breeds mainly due to human interference, referred to as ‘selective breeding‘. Other modern subspecies of the ancient wolf is the Eurasian wolf (Canis lupus lupus), the Coyote (Canis latrans) and the Black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas) as well as many other subspecies globally.

Coyote (Canis latrans)

[Source: ^http://true-wildlife.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/coyote.html]

The Dingo for thousands of years has been Australia’s largest mammalian predator. It has evolved to become an integral part of the native Australian ecology, as apex (top order) predators at the top of the natural food chain and highly adaptive and naturally distributed across every habitat and region of Australia, except Tasmania.

The Dingo’s natural prey consists of small native mammals and ground-dwelling birds, as well as small kangaroos and similar ‘macropods‘ (kangaroo botanical family ‘Macropodidae‘). In this way, naturally occurring population of dingoes has played a key role in maintaining the populations and diversity of these native species.

Unlike domestic dogs, the Dingo yelps and howls, but generally does not bark. It has a different gait to domestic dogs with almost with a cat-like agile habit. Its ears are always erect and it uses its paws like hands. In its natural state the Dingo lives either alone or in a small group unlike many other wild dog species which may form packs. Dingoes tends to survey their surroundings from a height.

Whereas traditional Aboriginal occupation of Australia evolved over thousands of years with harmonious ecological interaction and respect, European colonial invasion of Australia and the widespread deforestation and introduced species that came with it, has destroyed or otherwise perverted Australia’s natural ecology. Dingos and Colonist-introduced domestic dogs interbreed freely resulting in very few pure-bred dingos in southern or eastern Australia. This is seriously threatening the dingo’s ability to survive as a pure species. Public hostility is another threat to the dingo.

Australian Aboriginal peoples commonly refer to the dingo as the ‘Warragul‘. This name has been used for a town 100km south-east of Melbourne, reflective of the traditional presence of the dingo as far south as southern Victoria. Other Aboriginal names for Dingo across Australia include include ‘binure‘ and ‘mirragang‘ (Gundungurra language), ‘mirri‘ (Darug language), ‘nurragee‘ and ‘mirragang‘ (Tharawal language).

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Pure Dingo at Risk of Extinction

Pure-bred Dingo numbers in the Australian wild are declining as Colonists and their decendants continue to encroach deeper into wilderness areas, releasing feral dogs that inevitably compete, socialise and breed with pure Dingoes.

Professor Bill Ballard of the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of New South Wales has conducted research showing that there are few remaining pure dingoes are left in wild. [Read More].

According to Dr. Alan Wilton’s mitochondrial DNA testing of Dingoes from 2000, most Dingo populations throughout Australia are 80% hybrids, with some 100% hybrids. Only a few populations remain ‘Pure Dingo‘. One area isolated from colonial incursion is the southern Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, which has been designated a Dingo Conservation Area, supposedly to control wild dogs in this area in order to prevent cross-breeding with pure Dingoes and the hybridisation of the Dingo species. [>Read More (480kb) ]

In 2005, the Dingo was listed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species as ‘Vulnerable‘ due to a 30% decrease in numbers (IUCN = ‘International Union for Conservation of Nature’). [^Read More]

However, the IUCN wrongly groups the Australian Dingo (Canis lupis ssp. dingo) with the New Guinea Singing Dog (Canis lupus familiaris hallstomi) and with other South East Asian dogs under its Red List classification ‘Canis lupus ssp. dingo‘. This fails to assign proper genetic distriction of the Pure Australian Dingo as a discrete subspecies, which has evolved in Australia over thjousands of years quite separately from these other South East Asian subspecies. The IUCN contradictorily uses the term ‘dingo’ to refer to the Australian Pure Dingo and at the same time in a generic sense as a common name to describe the wild dogs of Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and New Guinea. The IUCN interpretation is contradictory and wrong.

The ‘Australian Pure Dingo’ is not a Polynesian domestic dog!

On the one hand , the IUCN explains the difficulty of distinguishing pure dingoes from hybrids and states that the “pure form may now be locally extinct (Corbett 2001)” and that “such quantitative data is not available for countries other than Australia, Thailand and Papua New Guinea“. Yet the IUCN website shows only two known mapped locations of this subspecies – both being on Fraser Island (Aboriginal: K’Gari).

The IUCN concludes that where the most genetically intact populations live is where conservation efforts should be focused.

Fraser Island (K’Gari)

Showing possibly the last of the planet’s Australian Pure Dingo distribution,

according to the IUCN in 2011

[Source: The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, version 2011.2, ^http://maps.iucnredlist.org/map.html?id=41585]

Given the severely restricted distribution of the Pure Australian Dingo, this subspecies deserves discrete classification and listing by the IUCN as ‘Critically Endangered‘. Clearly more intensive research by the IUCN is warranted, particularly recognising the recent and expert studies in this specific field by Professor Bill Ballard, Dr Alan Wilton and Jeremy Shearman, amongst others.

Recognition of the Pure Australian Dingo as at risk is given inconsistent hotch-potch protection by Australian jurisdictions. In New South Wales (NSW), Dingo populations from Sturt National Park, the coastal ranges and some coastal parks have been nominated as endangered populations under the NSW Threatened Species Conservation Act 1995. At Australian national level and under the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974, the Dingo remains unprotected despite being considered a native species. Under the Rural Lands Protection Act 1998 (NSW), Dingoes are still declared a pest species, a throwback to the colonial mindset.

Dr Wilton predicts that within 100 years, the pure dingo will be extinct in the wild.

‘Dingo’s are going away the Thylacine unfortunately, unless somebody does something about it soon we won’t have any dingo’s left.’

The Thylacene

Persecuted by misguided Colonists until its extinction in the 1930s

Dr Wilton has identified that there remains only one genetically confirmed population of pure dingoes – those on Queensland’s Fraser Island – perhaps as few as 120 individuals left. This clan was long isolated from early colonial invasion and disturbance, but in recent times has increasingly been threatened by growing tourism incursions (400,000 tourists annually) and mismanagement and persecution by Queensland wildlife rangers. Yet despite the precarious viability of this precious pure Dingo population, in 2001 Queensland Labor Premier Peter Beattie ordered a mass slaughter of forty dingoes in retribution for a boy tourist being killed that year by Dingoes on the island. [>Read More]

Clearly the Queensland Labor Party and the delegated custodian, the Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) (or whatever its latest rebranded name) values Fraser Island for anthopocentric tourism more than the survival of the Australian Dingo as a species. Fraser Island is World Heritage Listed, but the Queensland Government has always interpreted this as a tourism branding strategy.

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‘Genetically pure dingoes face extinction’

[Source: ‘Genetically pure dingoes face extinction’, by Peter McAllister (science writer and anthropologist from Griffith University), 20110311, ^http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/dingo-populations-at-risk-from-hybrids.htm]

‘Dingoes are often in headlines for all the wrong reasons – agressive behaviour to tourists, culls by national park authorities – but behind the scenes, conservationists hold concerns that dingoes may be interbred into extinction.

Fears for the dingo’s future are proliferating. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) upgraded the dingo’s conservation status to vulnerable in 2004 and dingo experts such as Dr Ricky Spencer from the University of Western Sydney, have predicted Australia’s native canine will go extinct within the next twenty years.

Purebred Dingo

(Photo: Bradley Smith)

[Source: ^http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/dingo-populations-at-risk-from-hybrids.htm]

But it’s not just their white socks that are changing though. One recent study found that average dingo weight and size has risen by 20 per cent over the past two decades, probably because of hybridisation. This change could alter the way dingoes hunt, allowing them to attack livestock and wildlife they’ve previously found an unmanageable size.

Behavioural changes also cause ecological problems. There is some evidence, for instance, that the dingo breeding season has grown longer under the influence of domestic dog genes; dogs breed twice a year, in contrast to the dingo’s single season. This might be one reason for the explosion in dingo and wild dog numbers across the country.

Another might be the breakdown in the pack structure of dingo societies. In the wild, dingo packs sometimes centre around a breeding alpha pair which suppress the breeding of subordinate members – a possible natural population control measure. Domestic dogs, however, seem to form larger packs with uncontrolled breeding, again possibly contributing to the current population explosion.

Hybridisation with domestic doges is the Dingo’s greatest threat. Dingoes and domestic dogs, both subspecies of Canis lupus, can interbreed with ease and this has led to a massive influx of domestic dog genes into the dingo gene pool.

In many places around Australia (some experts say ‘most‘) dingoes have been almost totally replaced by dog-dingo hybrids. Even those animals that appear to be dingoes are often now, in reality, mostly domestic dogs. “The only way to tell for sure,” says Dr Guy Ballard, a dingo researcher with the NSW government’s vertebrate pest unit, “is by analysing their skulls, or taking DNA samples”.

But it’s not just their white socks that are changing though. One recent study found that average dingo weight and size has risen by 20% over the past two decades, probably because of hybridisation. This change could alter the way dingoes hunt, allowing them to attack livestock and wildlife they’ve previously found an unmanageable size..

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Saving the Purebred Dingo

This inexorable tide of hybridisation has lent new urgency to the question of how best to save the dingo. Most experts are pessimistic about the chances of preventing interbreeding, pointing out that contact between dog and dingo populations is only going to increase.

Some proponents advocate the establishment of refuges where remnant populations of pure dingoes could be maintained. The best known of these is Fraser Island, where the Great Sandy National Park protects what is regarded as the purest population of dingoes left in Australia. However, the culling of problem dingoes on the popular tourist island has led to fears that the dingo population there is now too small to be genetically viable.

Such concerns have led some conservationists to opt for a different strategy: establishing their own private breeding refuges on the mainland instead. One such is the Australian Dingo Conservation Association’s (ADCA) 92 ha compound at Colong station in the Blue Mountains National Park.

There the ADCA maintains a breeding population of 31 purebred dingoes.

“We try hard to maintain that genetic purity,” says ADCA vice-president Gavan McDowell. “We even separate our breeding packs into sub-types, like mountain, desert and tropical dingoes.”

The Association’s ultimate aim is to breed a number of pure dingoes that can be released into the wild to recolonise areas, cleared of feral dogs.

Silver Lining

Other researchers, like Guy, are more optimistic of the dingo’s plight.

His research includes several field projects looking at dingo purity around Australia. While Guy acknowledges that hybridisation is a major threat, he says that wherever his group tests dingoes, even in heavily hybridised areas of NSW, they still find good numbers of purebred dingoes.

“People often don’t realise that the environmental factors that lead to large numbers of hybrids also mean large numbers of pure dingoes,” Guy says. “It’s impossible to prove, but I suspect there are actually more purebred dingoes around today than at any other time in history.”

Best of all, says Guy, is the fact that his team has identified several hotspots where pure dingo numbers are consistently high. One is the Tanami Desert, where the dingo population is 90 per cent pure, apparently due to the area’s remoteness. Two others, however, lie on the heavily settled NSW coast: at Myall Lakes National Park and Limeburners Creek Nature Reserve.

Quirks of geography – Limeburners Creek is on a peninsula, and Myall Lakes is connected by green belts to the wilder lands out to Sydney’s west – have apparently allowed both areas to sustain populations of pure dingoes, despite their proximity to settled areas with large populations of domestic dogs.

Guy also believes that with careful management – such as continual DNA tests to identify and euthanise hybridised dogs – the populations at Limeburners Creek and Myall Lakes can maintain their purity for some time to come.

“Dingoes have survived two hundred years of interbreeding already,” he says.

“I don’t see why, with a little help, they can’t survive for another two hundred.”

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Aboriginal Respect for Dingoes

‘Following its arrival into Australia, the dingo was readily accepted into Aboriginal life, both practically and spiritually. Dingoes have long been valued companion animals to Aboriginal peoples, serving as hunting companions, camp guard dogs, camp cleaners and as bed warmers on cold nights.

Spiritually, dingoes have been regarded as a protector (particularly by traditional Fraser Island tribes) and representing ancestral spirits – able to perceive the presence of evil spirits undetectable by humans. Mythological or Dreamtime stories about the Dingo in Aboriginal cultures across Australia are for Aboriginal people to convey.

Dingoes are valued companion animals to traditional Aboriginal peoples

Dingoes are as Australian as Aboriginal peoples.

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Tags: Australian Pure Dingo, Fraser Island dingo
Posted in Dingoes, Threats from Tourism and Recreation | 3 Comments »

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Remove all ferals from Fraser Island

Saturday, February 18th, 2012

No place for feral tourists on World Heritage Fraser Island

Remove all ferals from Fraser Island – rabbits, cats, brumbies, gambusia, cane toads, 4WDs, tourists and tour operators!

It’s time to reverse the tables. I’d like to see these exploiters racing towards catastrophic collapse instead of the native dingos – and for any trangressions automatically attract a minimum $200,000 fine and/or 6 months in gaol.

Shut down the Fraser Island Ferry Service and Manta Ray Fraser Island Barge service – pay the ferrymen compensation to retire happily.

Shut down Kingfisher Bay Resort – pay the operator out to retire happily, then convert it into a proper National Parks wildlife research station.

Such 20th Century resort tourism is inappropriate for World Heritage Fraser Island

Fraser Island is a National Park. It is world heritage listed by crikes, not as a tourism promotion, but for its ecological values. The place is endangered, the pure native dingo is on its last legs and suffering at the hands of humans, so number one priority of a national park is ecological protection. National Parks Service needs to get its nose out of tourism exploitation and bush arson and back into its job of wildlife ecology management. But it needs to be managed at national level, because the Queensland DERM cowboys can’t be trusted.

There is no reason why the custody of the entire island should not be returned to the traditional Butchulla and Badtjala peoples to oversee the rehabilitatiin and ecological management.

Indeed, Fraser Island should renamed back to the respective indigenous names: K’gari and Gari.

It is time to get serious about ecology. Simple solution, just takes community will and leadership, like in the 1970s grassroots campaign to originally protect the island from Joh’s sand mining pillage.

Get the tourists off Fraser Island. Shut down Base Camp Fraser Island, shut down Eurong Beach Resort, shut down Fraser Island Beach Houses, Fraser Island Fishing Units, Fraser Island Hideaway, Fraser View Apartments, Cathedrals on Fraser camping ground, Fraser Island Waiuta Retreat. Compulsorily acquire their land holdings and put them on the last tourist ferry off the island.

4WD tourist hoons on Fraser Island in 2009

[Source: ‘Overseas tourists drive up Fraser Island 4WD carnage’,

by Tony Moore and Cameron Atfield, Brisbane Times, 20091215,

^http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/travel/travel-news/overseas-tourists-drive-up-fraser-island-4wd-carnage-20091214-ks6f.html]

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Pure Dingo

Threatened, harrassed on its native Fraser Island

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Last April 2011, three Fraser Island dingo pups were destroyed (read ‘executed‘) in as many weeks after displaying aggressive behaviour towards humans, according to the Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM). DERM general manager Terry Harper said three dingoes from the June/July 2010 litters had “posed a clear threat”’ to the safety of visitors and the community. Fraser Island is the dingos native home. The tourists are feral intruders and the problem, not the dingos. Harper needs to be sacked.

[Source: ‘Three more Fraser Island dingoes destroyed after aggressive behaviour toward campers’, by Kristin Shorten, The Courier-Mail, 20110428, ^http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/three-more-fraser-island-dingoes-destroyed-after-aggressive-behaviour-toward-campers/story-e6freoof-1226046070071]

Say no more!

Bree Jashin of the Fraser Island Dingo Preservation Group says tourists feeding and teasing dingoes on Fraser Island could lead to the extinction of the native dogs on the island. Ms Jashin provided AAP with a photograph of tourists kicking sand at dingoes and a first-hand account of another incident between tourists and a dingo pup, which she said could elicit a reaction and lead to the dingo’s destruction by rangers.

“The right for humans to play at the expense of the future of the only thoroughbred dingoes left is unacceptable,” Ms Jashin said. “Fraser Island is the dingoes’ home and humans have to remember they are guests in that home.

Chris Druery was among a group of three visitors in a four-wheel-drive south of Eli Creek on Fraser Island on October 1 last year when they saw an approaching vehicle drive directly towards a dingo pup.

“[The driver] pointed their vehicle directly towards the pup and sped up, attempting to run it down,” Mr Druery said. “They also swerved violently towards the pup, missing it by only centimetres. “We watched the pup cower and run towards the surf with its hind legs tucked up under its rear end.”

Mr Druery said those in the offending four-wheel-drive were laughing during their attempts to run the dingo down. “It is disappointing that such a jewel in the crown can be tarnished by clowns that drive dangerously on the beach,” he said.

Ms Jashin said the three dingoes in photographs she snapped last year were heading towards Eurong township beachfront when they were harassed by backpackers.

“The pups were simply minding their own business when the girls screamed and the young male backpacker began to aggressively yell, run at, and kick sand at the pups,” she said.
Rather than dissuade the dogs, the yelling attracted them towards the group. “The backpackers all jumped in the vehicle and drove up close to them to take pics,” she said. She said all three of the pups had been destroyed after exhibiting allegedly aggressive behaviour towards humans.

[Source: ‘Tourists ‘threatening dingo extinction’, by AAP, 20100317, ^http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/tourists-threatening-dingo-extinction-20100317-qe1o.html].

Uncontrolled tourist interation with Fraser Island’s wild dingoes

Tourists and wildlife don’t mix – when will Parks Management get the message ?

DERM is not a tourist operator. Fraser Island is a World Heritage National Park for wildlife.

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Fraser Island is a wildlife World Heritage sanctuary, not another Hamilton Island Resort!

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Last September 2011, some bored National Parks officers decided to start a fire on the island. They excused it as a ‘controlled burn’, but is is arson no less and surprise surprise, it got out of control. “It was going for five or six days, and the weather changed and it took off in a different direction, unfortunately. “These things are part of life. In most national parks you need to reduce the fuel load.”

The vandals need to be sacked (including the manager for probably inciting it) banned from Fraser Island and fined for the cost of the emergency response by the 18 fire fighters from Rural Fire Brigade, Queensland Fire and Rescue Service and the 4 waterbombing aircraft.

[Source: ‘A resort on Fraser Island is threatened by a grass fire, which appears to have started with a controlled burn’, by AAP, 20111003, ^http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/a-resort-on-fraser-island-is-threatened-by-a-major-grass-fire/story-e6frg6nf-1226156969941]

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Queensland’s Fraser Island was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1992 after nearly twenty years battle and public debate.

Once it was listed, the Queensland Government has maliciously abused the world heritage for tourism and recreation, allowing the precious island to become so degraded that some people are now arguing that it needs to be placed on the World Heritage in Danger List. (Ed: It should be, right now).

‘It isn’t that Fraser Island lacks the values that warranted its World Heritage listing in the first place. It is just that the management values for Fraser Island are pre-occupied with recreation Management to the neglect of the protection of its World Heritage values.

Unmonitored 4WDs

A bit of road widening into Fraser Island’s vegetation

On Fraser Island ‘bevans‘ rule ok!

‘On Fraser Island 4WD recreational vehicles rule all policy decisions even though environmental studies have conclusively shown the impact of the 4WDs in compacting sand in the substrate and thus accelerating water erosion. The mobilization of sand as a result of this means that over a three year period more than a million tones of sand has been mobilized and sluiced down the slopes. That means over a tonne of sand it relocated for every visitor to Fraser Island!

‘Some roads are now scoured down to a depth of 4 metres and they continue this on-going down-cutting every time it rains. As little as 5mm of rain is more than enough to start mobilizing surface sand on roads. Some of the sand is deposited lower down the slopes; other sand is being sluiced into the iconic perched dune lakes.

Road to McKenzie – the Parks Service must have gone AWOL

Some of the sand is deposited so that picnic tables begin to get buried and other picnic spots are being scoured out demonstrating the fragility and mobility of any disturbed soil surface on Fraser Island.

‘In 1963 Indian Head had a lawn of thick grass extending right to its summit. Since then the unprotected surface soil has been disturbed but hundreds of thousands of feet. This has been eroded and washed away by rain exposing an ever expanding area of bare rock. There are no plans to repair the damage or rectify this problem in the foreseeable future.

Indian Head degradation by excessive uncontrolled tourism.

Where are DERM Parks Management – off lighting grass fires?

Indian Head vegetation back in 1974

‘A disproportionate amount of the budget is spent on recreational facilities, visitor safety and management, waste management. Road widening and upgrading has become an obsession. This focus has led to the neglect of research and the natural resource management, — environmental monitoring of wildlife and ecosystems, fire management, weed control, and quarantine.’

Fraser Island’s native long-necked turtles

vulnerable to 4WD hoons

‘The preoccupation with recreation management on Fraser Island is encouraging more and more visitors to visit Fraser Island in unsustainable ways. Recreation is degrading Fraser Island’s World Heritage values including its iconic lakes. Recreation management is at the expense of managing the island’s natural resources. These suffer from lack of adequate monitoring. No monitoring of the water quality in the lakes was done for a decade while road run-off continues to pour into the lakes impacting on water quality.’

Ongoing sand dune damage by unmonitored 4WDs

Tourist access on Fraser Island has become a free-for-all !

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Fraser Island has less than one kilometre of boardwalks. Queensland government policy prevents any feasibility into developing an environmentally more sustainable light rail people mover there. Yet compared with Gunung Mulu National Park in Malaysia, listed eight years after Fraser Island, with exactly a tenth of the visitor number of Fraser Island puts Fraser Island management to shame.

[Source: ‘Queensland’s shameful management of the Fraser Island World Heritage site‘, by John Sinclair, 20100702, ^http://randomkaos.com/node/14, (John Sinclair is one of Australia’s leading nature conservationists and has lead the fight to save Fraser Island since 1971 when he founded the Fraser Island Defenders Organisation)]

In 2007 an Irish backpacker tourist, Evan Kelly, while on Fraser Island thought it was a good idea to run down a sand dune into Lake Wabby. He did this several times then landed head first in the lake, hurt his back then sued the Queensland Government and the backpacker hostel, Pippies Beach House, for failing to warn him of the dangers.

Previously in 2006, tourist Su Chul Jang from South Korea, decided to run down a sand dune and dive into Lake Wabby, but became a quadriplegic and sued the tour company Fraser Escape 4×4 Tours Pty Ltd and the Queensland Government.

Leave Lake Wabby alone!

[Source: Fraser Island backpacker sues Queensland Government, tourism operators for injuries at Lake Wabby’ by Kay Dibben, The Sunday Mail (Qld), 20100829, ^http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/fraser-island-backpacker-sues-queensland-government-tourism-operators-for-injuries-at-lake-wabby/story-e6freoof-1225911278600]

What’s the full cost of Fraser Island tourism?

The Queensland Government’s World Heritage management of Fraser Island has been called into question internationally over claimed incompetence and malice.

Opposition Shadow Sustainability Minister Glen Elmes said he had “taken steps to ensure that UNESCO, the organisation charged with overseeing World Heritage listed areas, has been advised of the island’s plight”. He described island management as “incompetent at best” and a betrayal of state government conservation obligations.

Mr Elmes accused her Department of Environment and Resource Management of a major cover-up of mismanagement, environmental damage and “ruthless and cruel” policies on dingo management. Mr Elmes told Parliament this week that he had read the report, estimating the death of 97 dingoes from causes listed in autopsy reports as “lethal injection, shot, run over, poisoned, starvation and others”.

“One autopsy lists under possible cause of death, ‘rifle-itis,’ while another states ‘half an ounce of hot lead,” he said. “Labor’s interim report shows happy snaps of a dingo family, dingoes on the beach, dingoes frolicking in the water, a dingo running up the beach with a fish in its mouth. “On a normal day, those dingoes would be hazed by rangers – that is shot with a clay pellet, moving them away from the beach and away from their main food source,” he said.

[Source: Claims of Fraser Island ‘cover-up’ by Arthur Gorrie, 20100902, ^http://www.gympietimes.com.au/story/2010/09/02/Fraser-Island-cover-up-claimed/]

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Meanwhile the Queensland Labor Government’s only interest for Fraser Island is more tourism development.

In September 2010, Federal Labor Environment Minister Tony Burke and Queensland’s Bligh Labor Government’s Climate Change and Sustainability Minister Kate Jones opened a joint $3.4 million tourist facilities at Lake McKenzie on Fraser Island.

“This is great for tourism on the island and great news for the Hervey Bay economy.”

~ Kate Jones’ 20th Century mindset for world heritage.

Labelling it “eco-friendly”, the modern facilities include:

More vehicle access routes
A bigger car park
Wider pedestrian access to the beach
More toilets
More viewing platforms
Improved signage
Oh and extensive site revegetation. Nice.

[Source: ‘Ministers officially open major upgrade to facilities at Lake McKenzie’ (Labor joint media release), 20100923, ^http://www.environment.gov.au/minister/burke/2010/mr20100923.html]

Fraser Island’s 75 Mile Beach

…clear of ferals of all types

It is time to place Fraser Island on the World Heritage in Danger List, get all the ferals including the tourists and their profiteers off the island and to commence the job and investment of serious World Heritage management of one of the planet’s remaining important nature assets.

Tigerquoll
Suggan Buggan
Snowy River Region
Victoria 3885
Australia

Lake Boomanjin on Fraser Island,

Supposedly protected

(Photo by Steven Nowakowski, click photo to enlarge)

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Tags: Fraser Island, Fraser Island dingo
Posted in Dingoes, Threats from Bushfire, Threats from Tourism and Recreation | 7 Comments »

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Dingo Ecology deserves respect on Fraser Is

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

Fraser Island Dingo

[Source: ^http://widebaygreens.org/fraser-island/]

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‘The dingo population on (Fraser) island is regarded as the most pure strain of dingoes remaining in eastern Australia’.

~ ^UNESCO World Heritage

‘Dingoes were once common on the island, but are now decreasing. They are some of the last remaining pure dingoes in Eastern Australia and to prevent cross-breeding, dogs are not allowed on the island. There was no recorded history of dingoes attacking humans on Fraser Island up until 1995.

In April 2001, a boy wandered away from his family and was discovered dead, with indications of a dingo attack. Thirty-one dingoes were killed by authorities as a result of the incident. In 2004, a dingo entered a hotel room on the island where a baby was lying on a bed. It was chased off before any incident occurred. Feeding or attracting the attention of dingoes remains illegal.

The remaining number of dingoes on the island is estimated to be 120 to 150 as of January 2008 and sightings are becoming rarer.’

[Source: ^http://widebaygreens.org/fraser-island/]

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Need to Control Humans

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Given the recent history of parental negligence on Fraser Island, has it got to the point of mandating an ‘Adults Only’ responsible presence on Fraser Island?

Such a respectful ecological policy would ensure that only responsible human adults share and respect Fraser Island without risking more starving dingos to be shot in some twisted vengeance by so-called ‘wildlife officers’.

Australia’s national disgrace – starving dingos cornered on their native Fraser Island

[Source: ^http://www.care2.com/news/member/525884267/1440667]

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What is the Queensland Government’s latest brand name for its agency responsible for Fraser Island’s supposed World Heritage values? – ‘Department of Environmental Resource Management‘ – who’s flaming resource? Is Queensland still redneck about tourism revenue and exploitation of this World Heritage tourism brand?.

Dingos are wild Australian animals.

Why haven’t Australian tourists learnt from Australia’s Azaria Lesson that children and wildlife don’t mix?

“The Fraser Island Dingo is believed to be the purest strain of Dingo on the East Coast of Australia. It is illegal to feed or touch the Dingoes as it causes the animals to become “humanised”. There have been recorded instances of Dingoes attacking humans with the fatal attack of a 9 year old boy. This is not a regular occurence and if people are aware of the danger then these instances can be minimised.”
[Source: ^http://ozmagic2.homestead.com/dingo.html]

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Need to Restore Dingo Ecology on Fraser Island

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The problem of the health, viability and survivability of Fraser Island Dingos is a joint responsibility of the Queensland Government and Australian Government.

Why the deliberate slaughter of dingos by the very Government agency charged with Fraser Island’s ecological integrity: ‘Department of Environmental Resource Management‘?

‘The recent slaughter of a very large number of one of the last genetically pure populations of dingoes in Australia (on Fraser Island) has prompted an overwhelming call by our member organisations to press for better protection for dingoes, both from acts of State-sanctioned cruelty and from the extreme and urgent threat of extinction.’

[Source: ^http://www.awpc.org.au/other_fauna/dingo1.htm]

Starved dingo pup found on Fraser Island

Photo by local resident Judy Daniel, 2010

[Source: ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/30/2859757.htm]

Archive for the ‘Dingoes’ Category

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[Ed: It is past time that Fraser Island was completely closed to all tourism]

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About 40% of the country’s native species are listed as threatened or close to extinction, thanks to the explosion in numbers of feral cats and foxes.

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Wildlife-based Tourism Exploitation

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Bevan Tourism

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Fraser Island heritage avoids Conservation

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Fraser Island’s Record of Exploitation

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The Four Main Adverse Impacts of Tourism on Fraser Island

1. Target Destinations (high concentration visitation)

2. Means of Access

3. “Traditional” Visitation Practices

4. Surface Disturbance

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Further Tourism Impacts

5. Erosion of Wilderness Values

6. Spread of Injurious Agents

7. Diversion of Management Resources

8. Perversion of political priorities

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Motor Vehicle Impacts

9. Roads

10. Impacts on Wildlife

11. Eroding Habitat

12. Pollution

13. Noise

14. Distortion of Priorities

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Read more about Tourism Impacts on Fraser Island

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National Parks ‘Tourism Playground’ imperative

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“What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset.”

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“People…especially people in positions of power…have invested a tremendous amount of effort and time to get to where they are. They really don’t want to hear that we’re on the wrong path, that we’ve got to shift gears and start thinking differently.”

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‘Island Playground’ dictates Dingo Culling

2009: ‘Residents protest Fraser Island dingo cull’

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2012: ‘Dingo eludes Fraser Island rangers’

‘Hazing’?

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Related Articles (this website)

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Further Reading

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An Ecologically Respectful Custodial Strategy for Fraser Island (by FIDO).

1. Significant Omissions

2. Keeping dingoes in the wild

3. Population

4. Environmental Changes

5. Modifying the Animal Behaviour

6. Changing Human Behaviour

7. Destruction, Culling and Relocation

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Ed: When will government grow up and become wise, accept its stewardship, plan long term and slow down?

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Fraser Island is alcohol fueled

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“The Effects of heavy 4WD traffic on the beaches have unknown impacts on littoral (shoreline) fauna and control measures may soon be needed. The legal status of the portion of Fraser Island that is not a national park is under review and many changes in favour of conservation are anticipated.”

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