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Brendan's Blog » Wild dog attacks up 20% this year.

Wild dog attacks up 20% this year.

 It seems to me everywhere I go and everyone I speak to his having a great deal problem with wild dogs.  The wild dog attacks are up 20% this year with an estimated cost of $33 million in lost livestock in Queensland alone.

Just last weekend I was reading an article in the Canberra Times about the sheep farmers around Cooma, and it appears that they are having tremendous amount of problem with wild dogs coming from the National Parks on to their land and mauling their sheep.  One of them was saying that he had lost 16 sheep in the last week and over 160 sheep this year.  Now if you work out the cost of that it would be in the thousands of dollars just to this one farmer.  While they have spoken to national parks to help get rid of the dogs it appears that the parks is only interested in placing 1080 around the perimeter while the dogs are able to run free within the park.  I would have a guess that any dog in its right mind would pass up a bait to get hold of the live sheep, so there is no surprise that this technique is not working.

In Queensland it appears that they have finally concluded that their dog management scheme is currently not working, and they are looking at doing a strategic review to see how they can better the processes and control the wild dog population within Queensland.  I hope the rest of the country takes note and uses them as an example that their current management plan is inadequate to keep control of these animals.

I personally don't want to see the eradication of these animals as I believe they could fill a very important role in the ecological system within our forests and parks.  They will tend to clear out all the dead animals and keep control of not only the kangaroos but also feral cats, which of course a much more devastating to our ecological system. 

The problem with some of these wild dogs is that they are breeding with larger domesticated animals and pig dogs which have been lost, this is creating larger and larger wild dogs that tend not to be scared of humans and also hunt because they enjoy it not because they require nourishment.  With this in mind is a scary thought that people are reporting to see packs of 12 and 13 dogs around public camp areas and I feel that it's only a matter of time before these dogs become so confident that they will start attacking people, it was only a couple of years ago that some fishermen down in the snowy Mountains were attacked by a pack of dogs.  The National Parks reacted it started poisoning campaign but I am unsure of exactly how effective was.

The government is also reviewing and going to block the importation of dogs that contain wolf and other large wild dogs, the risk here is if these dogs get out into the wild and breed with the existing dogs that we will suddenly have super sized wild animals running around and killing far more live stock than they do now, along with the risk of human attacks.

I would like to hear your thoughts on the subject along with ways which you control your feral dogs, or ways which you were no of to control these animals.

 

Posted Jul 24 2008, 08:27 AM by Brendan
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Comments

Paul wrote re: Wild dog attacks up 20% this year.
on 24 Jul 2008 9:50

Mate I read that story as well. I actually commented under conservation hunter. It was good to have a reason to attack the National Parks organisation as they trully deserve it. I am not sure that I would like to see them(dogs) left there as they are not natural to the environment and I dont believe that they leave native species alone. I have seen dogs attack roos and can not see how they would distinguish between roos and say quolls. I agree that foxes and cats do more damage but that is probably only because of the sheer numbers of them.  It is funny that you mention the wolf type dogs as only recently I read an article about wolf populations reaching numbers not seen in over a century in parts of in parts of Russia and Europe. They have become so bad that that some small villages have had to be abbandoned due to there presence. The Govt is also considering banning some of the new cat species that have been bred in America using African native cats crossed with domestic species that if where released in Aus would start to interbreed with feral cats creating an even more dangerous and efficient native species killer.

micco wrote re: Wild dog attacks up 20% this year.
on 27 Jul 2008 22:32

All I can say, is that the only good feral dog/cat is a dead one.It dosn't matter where it comes from, the only criteria is that if it has one paw off the verandah,it's feral. A good fix for the feral dog/cat problem is ANY 6mm rifle shooting speer's excellent 75gn hollow point bullet or any thing larger of course. Don't forget legitimate tax payers walk in the bush that don't hunt and the last thing we, the hunting fraternity need is non hunting folk being attacked by what can be percieved as hunting dogs gone feral . If feral dog attacks are up 20% from last year, it's up to us to shoot them. I personlly like animals but I also don't like them doing damage in the bush or elswhere.  

ottis wrote re: Wild dog attacks up 20% this year.
on 8 Nov 2008 11:23

control these animals were they need controlling only. The dingo has been here for over 5 thousand years, makes him a native in my book. The answer is responsible  dog ownership and the introduction of severe penalties for people that dont give a rats about their animals. To suggest that any dog that steps of the verandah is feral and deserves a bullet is pathetic,comments and actions like this are what give resposible hunters a bad name.

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