Concerns heightening for Fraser Island's dingoes

In July this year the Queensland Minister for Climate Change and Sustainability, Kate Jones, announced a dingo ‘census’ on Fraser Island so that her department could ‘further fine-tune management strategies for a sustainable dingo population, while ensuring public safety’.

Earlier in the year the department’s controversial dingo management strategy elicited 71 public submissions, mainly from residents, tour operators and animal welfare groups. Most were concerned over the rapidly shrinking dingo population, and what they see as inhumane treatment from the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QP&WS).

Former CSIRO researcher, Dr Laurie Corbett, who advises the QP&WS on their dingo management strategy, was called in to review the current strategy and respond to the public concerns. An authority on the dingo, Corbett recognises the Fraser Island population as one of six in Australia worthy of the National Heritage List, and wrote the recent IUCN’s nomination of the dingo as a Vulnerable species.

Dingoes have been on Fraser Island for at least 1000 years. When the area was nominated by the Australian Government for World Heritage listing in 1991, its dingo population, then between 200 to 300 animals, was believed to be ‘the largest genetically unhybridised population on the east coast of Australia’.