Plate 2 shows areas of hybridisation between dingoes and European domestic dogs, with the majority of pure dingos relegated to desert areas of central and western Australia. Management of wild dogs has become increasingly important in recent times as their distribution is expanding into areas where they have not been seen for a very long while, and changes in land use has seen dog numbers build up in areas where they were previously controlled. For example, in 2008/2009, it was estimated that wild dogs cost the Queensland grazing industry approximately $67 million (Hewit 2009). Not only do dogs account for loss of income from predation and lost production of livestock, they can spread disease and have negative psychological effects on the people who work the land. The impact wild dogs have on agriculture is far more visible. Generalised wild dog distribution across Australia in 2013 (Source: Promoting and supporting community-driven action for landscape-scale wild dog management (National Project Steering Committee 2014, p.11)) ![]() Removal of the top order predator also allows the number of the meso-predators, in this case the red fox and cat, to increase known as the Meso-predator release theory. 2006) and this increase puts added pressure on food resources (grasses, etc) and habitats for many native mammals. When wild dogs are removed from a system, macropod numbers often increase (Letnic et al. The influence wild dogs have on Australian native fauna is best understood using the trophic cascade theory which predicts that top predators have alternating positive and negative effects on lower trophic level and may indirectly enhance plant biomass (Hairston et al. While wild dogs are a major concern for agricultural stakeholders, it must be realised that these animals have an important role to play in the trophic web – as the top order predator. Typically, top order predators are strongly interactive species that exert top-down control on ecosystems through their direct predatory and competitive interactions with herbivores and smaller predators (Letnic et al. ![]() This makes the issues surrounding their management far more difficult, as no one method can be best applied to all situations. Although considered to have become a functional component of many terrestrial ecosystems, the predatory behaviour of wild dogs can have severe social, economic and environmental consequences (Fitzgerald & Wilkinson 2009).Īs seen in Plate 1, wild dogs cover a large percentage of Australia and are found in a wide variety of habitat types. Since their introduction some 3500 years ago, the wild dog has had a noticeable influence on the ecology of Australia.
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