title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Gaelic has long suffered from its lack of use in educational and administrative contexts and was long suppressed.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The UK government has ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in respect of Gaelic. Gaelic, along with Irish and Welsh, is designated under Part III of the Charter, which requires the UK Government to take a range of concrete measures in the fields of education, justice, public administration, broadcasting and culture. It has not received the same degree of official recognition from the UK Government as Welsh. With the advent of devolution, however, Scottish matters have begun to receive greater attention, and it achieved a degree of official recognition when the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act was enacted by the Scottish Parliament on 21 April 2005.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: After its creation, Bòrd na Gàidhlig required a Gaelic Language Plan from the Scottish Government. This plan was accepted in 2008, and some of its main commitments were: identity (signs, corporate identity); communications (reception, telephone, mailings, public meetings, complaint procedures); publications (PR and media, websites); staffing (language learning, training, recruitment).


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Following a consultation period, in which the government received many submissions, the majority of which asked that the bill be strengthened, a revised bill was published; the main alteration was that the guidance of the is now statutory (rather than advisory). In the committee stages in the Scottish Parliament, there was much debate over whether Gaelic should be given 'equal validity' with English. Due to executive concerns about resourcing implications if this wording was used, the Education Committee settled on the concept of 'equal respect'. It is not clear what the legal force of this wording is.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The Act was passed by the Scottish Parliament unanimously, with support from all sectors of the Scottish political spectrum, on 21 April 2005. Under the provisions of the Act, it will ultimately fall to BnG to secure the status of the Gaelic language as an official language of Scotland.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Some commentators, such as (2006) argue that the Gaelic Act falls so far short of the status accorded to Welsh that one would be foolish or naïve to believe that any substantial change will occur in the fortunes of the language as a result of 's efforts.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: On 10 December 2008, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Scottish Human Rights Commission had the UDHR translated into Gaelic for the first time.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: However, given there are no longer any monolingual Gaelic speakers, following an appeal in the court case of "Taylor v Haughney" (1982), involving the status of Gaelic in judicial proceedings, the High Court ruled against a general right to use Gaelic in court proceedings.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: While the goal of the Gaelic Language Act was to aid in revitalization efforts through government mandated official language status, the outcome of the act is distanced from the actual minority language communities. It helps to create visibility of the minority language in civil structures, but does not impact or address the lived experiences of the Gaelic speaker communities wherein the revitalization efforts may have a higher return of new Gaelic speakers. Efforts are being made to concentrate resources, language planning, and revitalization efforts towards vernacular communities in the Western Isles.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The Scottish Qualifications Authority offer two streams of Gaelic examination across all levels of the syllabus: Gaelic for learners (equivalent to the modern foreign languages syllabus) and Gaelic for native speakers (equivalent to the English syllabus).


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: In October 2009, a new agreement allowed Scottish Gaelic to be formally used between Scottish Government ministers and European Union officials. The deal was signed by Britain's representative to the EU, Sir Kim Darroch, and the Scottish government. This did not give Scottish Gaelic official status in the EU but gave it the right to be a means of formal communications in the EU's institutions. The Scottish government had to pay for the translation from Gaelic to other European languages. The deal was received positively in Scotland; Secretary of State for Scotland Jim Murphy said the move was a strong sign of the UK government's support for Gaelic. He said; "Allowing Gaelic speakers to communicate with European institutions in their mother tongue is a progressive step forward and one which should be welcomed". Culture Minister Mike Russell said; "this is a significant step forward for the recognition of Gaelic both at home and abroad and I look forward to addressing the council in Gaelic very soon. Seeing Gaelic spoken in such a forum raises the profile of the language as we drive forward our commitment to creating a new generation of Gaelic speakers in Scotland."


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Bilingual road signs, street names, business and advertisement signage (in both Gaelic and English) are gradually being introduced throughout Gaelic-speaking regions in the Highlands and Islands, including Argyll. In many cases, this has simply meant re-adopting the traditional spelling of a name (such as or rather than the anglicised forms "Ratagan" or "Lochailort" respectively).


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Some monolingual Gaelic road signs, particularly direction signs, are used on the Outer Hebrides, where a majority of the population can have a working knowledge of the language. These omit the English translation entirely.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Bilingual railway station signs are now more frequent than they used to be. Practically all the stations in the Highland area use both English and Gaelic, and the use of bilingual station signs has become more frequent in the Lowlands of Scotland, including areas where Gaelic has not been spoken for a long time.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: This has been welcomed by many supporters of the language as a means of raising its profile as well as securing its future as a 'living language' (i.e. allowing people to use it to navigate from A to B in place of English) and creating a sense of place. However, in some places, such as Caithness, the Highland Council's intention to introduce bilingual signage has incited controversy.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The Ordnance Survey has acted in recent years to correct many of the mistakes that appear on maps. They announced in 2004 that they intended to correct them and set up a committee to determine the correct forms of Gaelic place names for their maps. Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba ("Place names in Scotland") is the national advisory partnership for Gaelic place names in Scotland.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: In the nineteenth century, Canadian Gaelic was the third-most widely spoken European language in British North America and Gaelic-speaking immigrant communities could be found throughout what is modern-day Canada. Gaelic poets in Canada produced a significant literary tradition. The number of Gaelic-speaking individuals and communities declined sharply, however, after the First World War.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: At the start of the 21st century, it was estimated that no more than 500 people in Nova Scotia still spoke Scottish Gaelic as a first language. In the 2011 census, 300 people claimed to have Gaelic as their first language (a figure that may include Irish Gaelic). In the same 2011 census, 1,275 people claimed to speak Gaelic, a figure that not only included all Gaelic languages but also those people who are not first language speakers, of whom 300 claim to have Gaelic as their "mother tongue."


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The Nova Scotia government maintains the Office of Gaelic Affairs (), which is dedicated to the development of Scottish Gaelic language, culture and tourism in Nova Scotia, and which estimates about 2,000 total Gaelic speakers to be in the province. As in Scotland, areas of North-Eastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton have bilingual street signs. Nova Scotia also has (The Gaelic Council of Nova Scotia), a non-profit society dedicated to the maintenance and promotion of the Gaelic language and culture in Maritime Canada. In 2018, the Nova Scotia government launched a new Gaelic vehicle license plate to raise awareness of the language and help fund Gaelic language and culture initiatives.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: In September 2021, the first Gaelic-medium primary school outside of Scotland, named , opened in Mabou, Nova Scotia.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: In Prince Edward Island, the Colonel Gray High School now offers both an introductory and an advanced course in Gaelic; both language and history are taught in these classes. This is the first recorded time that Gaelic has ever been taught as an official course on Prince Edward Island.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The province of British Columbia is host to the (The Gaelic Society of Vancouver), the Vancouver Gaelic Choir, the Victoria Gaelic Choir, as well as the annual Gaelic festival "Vancouver". The city of Vancouver's Scottish Cultural Centre also holds seasonal Scottish Gaelic evening classes.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The BBC operates a Gaelic-language radio station as well as a television channel, . Launched on 19 September 2008, BBC Alba is widely available in the UK (on Freeview, Freesat, Sky and Virgin Media). It also broadcasts across Europe on the Astra 2 satellites. The channel is being operated in partnership between BBC Scotland and – an organisation funded by the Scottish Government, which works to promote the Gaelic language in broadcasting. The ITV franchise in central Scotland, STV Central, has, in the past, produced a number of Scottish Gaelic programmes for both BBC Alba and its own main channel.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Until BBC Alba was broadcast on Freeview, viewers were able to receive the channel , which broadcast for an hour every evening. Upon BBC Alba's launch on Freeview, it took the channel number that was previously assigned to TeleG.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: There are also television programmes in the language on other BBC channels and on the independent commercial channels, usually subtitled in English. The ITV franchise in the north of Scotland, STV North (formerly "Grampian Television") produces some non-news programming in Scottish Gaelic.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The Education (Scotland) Act 1872, which completely ignored Gaelic and led to generations of Gaels being forbidden to speak their native language in the classroom is now recognised as having dealt a major blow to the language. People still living in 2001 could recall being beaten for speaking Gaelic in school. Even later, when these attitudes had changed, little provision was made for Gaelic medium education in Scottish schools. As late as 1958, even in Highland schools, only 20% of primary students were taught Gaelic as a subject, and only 5% were taught other subjects through the Gaelic language.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Gaelic-medium playgroups for young children began to appear in Scotland during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Parent enthusiasm may have been a factor in the "establishment of the first Gaelic medium primary school units in Glasgow and Inverness in 1985".


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The first modern solely Gaelic-medium secondary school, ("Glasgow Gaelic School"), was opened at Woodside in Glasgow in 2006 (61 partially Gaelic-medium primary schools and approximately a dozen Gaelic-medium secondary schools also exist). According to , a total of 2,092 primary pupils were enrolled in Gaelic-medium primary education in 2008–09, as opposed to 24 in 1985.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The Columba Initiative, also known as (formerly ), is a body that seeks to promote links between speakers of Scottish Gaelic and Irish.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Starting from summer 2020, children starting school in the Western Isles will be enrolled in GME (Gaelic-medium education) unless parents request differently. Children will be taught Scottish Gaelic from P1 to P4 and then English will be introduced to give them a bilingual education.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: In May 2004, the Nova Scotia government announced the funding of an initiative to support the language and its culture within the province. Several public schools in Northeastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton offer Gaelic classes as part of the high-school curriculum.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Maxville Public School in Maxville, Glengarry, Ontario, offers Scottish Gaelic lessons weekly. In Prince Edward Island, the Colonel Gray High School offer an introductory and an advanced course in Scottish Gaelic.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: A number of Scottish and some Irish universities offer full-time degrees including a Gaelic language element, usually graduating as Celtic Studies.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: In Nova Scotia, Canada, St. Francis Xavier University, the Gaelic College of Celtic Arts and Crafts and Cape Breton University (formerly known as the "University College of Cape Breton") offer Celtic Studies degrees and/or Gaelic language programs. The government's Office of Gaelic Affairs offers lunch-time lessons to public servants in Halifax.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The University of the Highlands and Islands offers a range of Gaelic language, history and culture courses at the National Certificate, Higher National Diploma, Bachelor of Arts (ordinary), Bachelor of Arts (Honours) and Master of Science levels. It offers opportunities for postgraduate research through the medium of Gaelic. Residential courses at on the Isle of Skye offer adults the chance to become fluent in Gaelic in one year. Many continue to complete degrees, or to follow up as distance learners. A number of other colleges offer a one-year certificate course, which is also available online (pending accreditation).


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Lews Castle College's Benbecula campus offers an independent 1-year course in Gaelic and Traditional Music (FE, SQF level 5/6).


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: In the Western Isles, the isles of Lewis, Harris and North Uist have a Presbyterian majority (largely Church of Scotland – in Gaelic, Free Church of Scotland and Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland). The isles of South Uist and Barra have a Catholic majority. All these churches have Gaelic-speaking congregations throughout the Western Isles. Notable city congregations with regular services in Gaelic are St Columba's Church, Glasgow and Greyfriars Tolbooth & Highland Kirk, Edinburgh. —a shorter Gaelic version of the English-language Book of Common Order—was published in 1996 by the Church of Scotland.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The widespread use of English in worship has often been suggested as one of the historic reasons for the decline of Gaelic. The Church of Scotland is supportive today, but has a shortage of Gaelic-speaking ministers. The Free Church also recently announced plans to abolish Gaelic-language communion services, citing both a lack of ministers and a desire to have their congregations united at communion time.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: From the sixth century to the present day, Scottish Gaelic has been used as a literary language. Two prominent writers of the twentieth century are Anne Frater and Sorley Maclean.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Gaelic has its own version of European-wide names which also have English forms, for example: (John), (Alexander), (William), (Catherine), (Robert), (Christina), (Ann), (Mary), (James), (Patrick) and (Thomas).


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Not all traditional Gaelic names have direct equivalents in English: , which is normally rendered as "Euphemia" (Effie) or "Henrietta" (Etta) (formerly also as Henny or even as Harriet), or, , which is "matched" with "Dorothy", simply on the basis of a certain similarity in spelling. Many of these traditional Gaelic-only names are now regarded as old-fashioned, and hence are rarely or never used.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Some names have come into Gaelic from Old Norse; for example, ( < ), (< ), or (< ), (< ), (). These are conventionally rendered in English as "Sorley" (or, historically, "Somerled"), "Norman", "Ronald" or "Ranald", "Torquil" and "Iver" (or "Evander").


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Some Scottish names are Anglicized forms of Gaelic names: → (Angus), → (Donald), for instance. , and the recently established (pronounced ) come from the Gaelic for, respectively, James, and Mary, but derive from the form of the names as they appear in the vocative case: (James) (nom.) → (voc.) and (Mary) (nom.) → (voc.).


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The most common class of Gaelic surnames are those beginning with (Gaelic for "son"), such as  /  (MacLean). The female form is (Gaelic for "daughter"), so Catherine MacPhee is properly called in Gaelic, (strictly, is a contraction of the Gaelic phrase , meaning "daughter of the son", thus really means "daughter of MacDonald" rather than "daughter of Donald"). The "of" part actually comes from the genitive form of the patronymic that follows the prefix; in the case of , ("of Donald") is the genitive form of ("Donald").


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Several colours give rise to common Scottish surnames: (Bain – white), (Roy – red), (Dow, Duff – black), (Dunn – brown), (Bowie – yellow) although in Gaelic these occur as part of a fuller form such as 'son of the servant of', i.e. .


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Most varieties of Gaelic show either eight or nine vowel qualities () in their inventory of vowel phonemes, which can be either long or short. There are also two reduced vowels () which occur only in their short versions. Although some vowels are strongly nasal, instances of distinctive nasality are rare. There are about nine diphthongs and a few triphthongs.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Most consonants have both palatal and non-palatal counterparts, including a very rich system of liquids, nasals and trills (i.e. three contrasting "l" sounds, three contrasting "n" sounds and three contrasting "r" sounds). The historically voiced stops have lost their voicing, so the phonemic contrast today is between unaspirated and aspirated . In many dialects, these stops may however gain voicing through secondary articulation through a preceding nasal, for examples "door" but "the door" as or .


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: In some fixed phrases, these changes are shown permanently, as the link with the base words has been lost, as in "now", from "this time/period".


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Scottish Gaelic is an Indo-European language with an inflecting morphology, verb–subject–object word order and two grammatical genders.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Gaelic nouns inflect for four cases (nominative/accusative, vocative, genitive and dative) and three numbers (singular, dual and plural).


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: They are also normally classed as either masculine or feminine. A small number of words that used to belong to the neuter class show some degree of gender confusion. For example, in some dialects "the sea" behaves as a masculine noun in the nominative case, but as a feminine noun in the genitive ().


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Nouns are marked for case in a number of ways, most commonly involving various combinations of lenition, palatalisation and suffixation.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: There are 12 irregular verbs. Most other verbs follow a fully predictable paradigm, although polysyllabic verbs ending in laterals can deviate from this paradigm as they show syncopation.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Word order is strictly verb–subject–object, including questions, negative questions and negatives. Only a restricted set of preverb particles may occur before the verb.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The majority of the vocabulary of Scottish Gaelic is of Celtic origin. However, Gaelic contains substantially more words of non-Goidelic extraction than Irish. The main sources of loanwords into Gaelic are the Germanic languages English, Scots and Norse. Other sources include Latin, French and the Brittonic languages.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Many direct Latin loanwords in Scottish Gaelic were adopted during the Old and Middle Irish (600 AD-1200 AD) stages of the language and are often terms related to Christianity. Latin is also the source of the days of the week ("Monday"), (Tuesday), ("Saturday") and ("Sunday").


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The Brittonic languages Cumbric and Pictish were spoken in Scotland during the Early to High Middle Ages, and Scottish Gaelic has many Brittonic influences. Scottish Gaelic contains a number of apparently P-Celtic loanwords, but it is not always possible to disentangle P and Q Celtic words. However, some common words such as ("legacy"), (; "mountain") and (; "bush") are transparently Brittonic in origin.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Scottish Gaelic contains a number of words, principally toponymic elements, that are more closely aligned in their usage and sense with their Brittonic cognates than their Irish. This is indicative of the operation of a Brittonic substrate influence. Such items include:


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: In common with other Indo-European languages, the neologisms coined for modern concepts are typically based on Greek or Latin, although often coming through English; "television", for instance, becomes and "computer" becomes . Some speakers use an English word even if there is a Gaelic equivalent, applying the rules of Gaelic grammar. With verbs, for instance, they will simply add the verbal suffix (, or, in Lewis, , as in, " watch (Lewis, "watch ") telly" (I am watching the television), instead of "". This phenomenon was described over 170 years ago, by the minister who compiled the account covering the parish of Stornoway in the "New Statistical Account of Scotland", and examples can be found dating to the eighteenth century. However, as Gaelic medium education grows in popularity, a newer generation of literate Gaels has become more familiar with modern Gaelic vocabulary.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Scottish Gaelic has also influenced the Scots language and English, particularly Scottish Standard English. Loanwords include: whisky, slogan, brogue, jilt, clan, galore trousers, gob, as well as familiar elements of Scottish geography like ben (), glen () and . Irish has also influenced Lowland Scots and English in Scotland, but it is not always easy to distinguish its influence from that of Scottish Gaelic.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Scottish Gaelic orthography is very regular; its standard was set by the 1767 New Testament. The 1981 Scottish Examination Board recommendations for Scottish Gaelic, the Gaelic Orthographic Conventions, were adopted by most publishers and agencies, although they remain controversial among some academics, most notably Ronald Black.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The quality of consonants (broad or slender) is indicated by the vowels surrounding them. Slender (palatalised) consonants are surrounded by slender vowels (), while broad (neutral or velarised) consonants are surrounded by broad vowels (). The spelling rule known as ("slender to slender and broad to broad") requires that a word-medial consonant or consonant group followed by is preceded by and similarly, if followed by is preceded by .


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: This rule sometimes leads to the insertion of a silent written vowel. For example, plurals in Gaelic are often formed with the suffix , for example, ("shoe") / ("shoes"). But because of the spelling rule, the suffix is spelled (but pronounced the same, ) after a slender consonant, as in ("[a] people") / ("peoples") where is purely a graphic vowel inserted to conform with the spelling rule because precedes the .


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Scots English orthographic rules have also been used at various times in Gaelic writing. Notable examples of Gaelic verse composed in this manner are the Book of the Dean of Lismore and the manuscript.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: The modern Scottish Gaelic alphabet has 18 letters: . is mostly used to indicate lenition of a consonant, it was not used in older writings, since lenition was indicated by an overdot. The letters of the alphabet were traditionally named after trees, but this custom has fallen out of use.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Long vowels are marked with a grave accent (), indicated through digraphs (e.g. for ) or conditioned by certain consonant environments (e.g. preceding a non-intervocalic is ). Traditionally the acute accent was used on to represent long close-mid vowels, but the spelling reforms replaced it with the grave accent.


title: Scottish Gaelic

text: Certain 18th century sources used only an acute accent along the lines of Irish, such as in the writings of Alasdair mac Mhaighstir Alasdair (1741–51) and the earliest editions (1768–90) of Duncan Ban MacIntyre.


title: Dingo

text: The dingo (Canis familiaris, Canis familiaris dingo, Canis dingo, or Canis lupus dingo) is an ancient (basal) lineage of dog found in Australia. Its taxonomic classification is debated as indicated by the variety of scientific names presently applied in different publications. It is variously considered a form of domestic dog not warranting recognition as a subspecies, a subspecies of dog or wolf, or a full species in its own right.


title: Dingo

text: The dingo is a medium-sized canine that possesses a lean, hardy body adapted for speed, agility, and stamina. The dingo's three main coat colourations are light ginger or tan, black and tan, or creamy white. The skull is wedge-shaped and appears large in proportion to the body. The dingo is closely related to the New Guinea singing dog: their lineage split early from the lineage that led to today's domestic dogs, and can be traced back through the Maritime Southeast Asia to Asia.


title: Dingo

text: The earliest known dingo fossil, found in Western Australia, dates to 3,450 years ago. However, genomic analysis indicates that the dingo reached Australia 8,300 years ago but the human population which brought them remains unknown. Dingo morphology has not changed over the past 3,500 years: this suggests that no artificial selection has been applied over this period.


title: Dingo

text: The dingo's habitat covers most of Australia, but they are absent in the southeast and Tasmania, and an area in the southwest (see map). As Australia's largest extant terrestrial predators, dingoes prey on mammals up to the size of the large red kangaroo, in addition to the grey kangaroo, wombat, wallaby, quoll and most other marsupials; they frequently pursue birds, lizards, fish, crabs, crayfish, eels, snakes, frogs, young crocodiles, larger insects, snails, and sometimes fallen fruits or seeds.


title: Dingo

text: Dingos can also be of potential benefit to their environment, as they will hunt Australia’s many introduced/invasive species; this includes human-introduced animals such as deer and their offspring (sambar, sika, chital, red, and roe deer) and water buffalo, in addition to the highly invasive rabbits, red foxes, feral/domestic cats, and some feral/stray dogs. Rarely, a pack of dingoes will pursue the larger, stronger and more dangerous dromedary camel, feral donkey, or wild horse (called the “brumby” in Australia); unattended young animals, or sick, weak, or elderly individuals are at greatest risk to be targeted.


title: Dingo

text: The first British colonists who settled at Port Jackson, in 1788, recorded the dingo living with indigenous Australians, and later at Melville Island, in 1818. Furthermore, they were noted at the lower Darling and Murray rivers in 1862, indicating the dingo was possibly semi-domesticated (or at least utilised in a “symbiotic” manner) by aboriginal Australians. When livestock farming began expanding across Australia, in the early 19th century, dingoes began preying on sheep and cattle. Numerous population-control measures have been implemented since then, including a nation-wide fencing project, with only limited success. The dingo is recognised as a native animal under the laws of all Australian jurisdictions.


title: Dingo

text: The dingo plays a prominent role in the Dreamtime stories of indigenous Australians; however, ironically, dingo are rarely depicted in their cave paintings, when compared with the extinct thylacine (also known as the Tasmanian wolf or Tasmanian tiger).


title: Dingo

text: A dingo pack usually consists of a mated pair, their offspring from the current year, and sometimes offspring from the previous year.


title: Dingo

text: The name "dingo" comes from the Dharug language used by the Indigenous Australians of the Sydney area.


title: Dingo

text: The first British colonists to arrive in Australia in 1788 established a settlement at Port Jackson and noted "dingoes" living with indigenous Australians. The name was first recorded in 1789 by Watkin Tench in his "Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay":


title: Dingo

text: The variants include "tin-go" for a bitch, "din-go" for a dog, and "wo-ri-gal" for a big dog. The dingo has different names in different indigenous Australian languages, such as "boolomo", "dwer-da", "joogoong", "kal", "kurpany", "maliki", "mirigung", "noggum", "papa-inura", and "wantibirri". Some authors propose that a difference existed between camp dingoes and wild dingoes as they had different names among indigenous tribes. The people of the Yarralin, Northern Territory region frequently call those dingoes that live with them "walaku", and those that live in the wilderness "ngurakin". They also use the name "walaku" to refer to both dingoes and dogs. The colonial settlers of New South Wales wrote using the name dingo only for camp dogs. It is proposed that in New South Wales the camp dingoes only became wild after the collapse of Aboriginal society.


title: Dingo

text: Dogs associated with natives were first recorded by Jan Carstenszoon in the Cape York Peninsula area in 1623. In 1699, Captain William Dampier visited the coast of what is now Western Australia and recorded that "my men saw two or three beasts like hungry wolves, lean like so many skeletons, being nothing but skin and bones". In 1788, the First Fleet arrived in Botany Bay under the command of Australia's first colonial governor, Arthur Phillip, who took ownership of a dingo and in his journal made a brief description with an illustration of the "Dog of New South Wales". In 1793, based on Phillip's brief description and illustration, the "Dog of New South Wales" was classified by Friedrich Meyer as "Canis dingo".


title: Dingo

text: In 1999, a study of the maternal lineage through the use of mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) as a genetic marker indicates that the dingo and New Guinea singing dog developed at a time when human populations were more isolated from each other. In the third edition of "Mammal Species of the World" published in 2005, the mammalogist listed under the wolf "Canis lupus" its wild subspecies, and proposed two additional subspecies: ""familiaris" Linnaeus, 1758 [domestic dog]" and ""dingo" Meyer, 1793 [domestic dog]". Wozencraft included "hallstromi"—the New Guinea singing dog—as a taxonomic synonym for the dingo. Wozencraft referred to the mDNA study as one of the guides in forming his decision. The inclusion of "familiaris" and "dingo" under a "domestic dog" clade has been noted by other mammalogists, and their classification under the wolf debated.


title: Dingo

text: In 2019, a workshop hosted by the IUCN/SSC Canid Specialist Group considered the New Guinea Singing Dog and the Dingo to be feral dogs ("Canis familiaris"), and therefore should not be assessed for the IUCN Red List.


title: Dingo

text: In 2020, the American Society of Mammalogists considered the dingo a synonym of the domestic dog. However, recent DNA sequencing of a 'pure' wild dingo from South Australia suggests that the dingo is 'intermediate' between wolves and domestic dogs.


title: Dingo

text: The dingo is regarded as a feral dog because it descended from domesticated ancestors. The dingo's relationship with indigenous Australians is one of commensalism, in which two organisms live in close association, but do not depend on each other for survival. They both hunt and sleep together. The dingo is, therefore, comfortable enough around humans to associate with them, but is still capable of living independently. Any free-ranging, unowned dog can be socialised to become an owned dog, as some dingoes do when they join human families. Although the dingo exists in the wild, it associates with humans, but has not been selectively bred similarly to other domesticated animals. Therefore, its status as a domestic animal is not clear. Whether the dingo was a wild or domesticated species was not clarified from Meyer's original description, which translated from the German language ambiguously reads:


title: Dingo

text: It is not known if it is the only dog species in New South Wales, and if it can also still be found in the wild state; however, so far it appears to have lost little of its wild condition; moreover, no divergent varieties have been discovered.


title: Dingo

text: In 2020, an mDNA study of ancient dog fossils from the Yellow River and Yangtze River basins of southern China showed that most of the ancient dogs fell within haplogroup A1b, as do the Australian dingoes and the pre-colonial dogs of the Pacific, but in low frequency in China today. The specimen from the Tianluoshan archaeological site, Zhejiang province dates to 7,000 YBP (years before present) and is basal to the entire haplogroup A1b lineage. The dogs belonging to this haplogroup were once widely distributed in southern China, then dispersed through Southeast Asia into New Guinea and Oceania, but were replaced in China by dogs of other lineages 2,000 YBP.


title: Dingo

text: The oldest reliable date for dog remains found in mainland Southeast Asia is from Vietnam at 4,000 YBP, and in Island Southeast Asia from Timor-Leste at 3,000 YBP. The earliest dingo remains in the Torres Straits date to 2,100 YBP. In New Guinea, the earliest dog remains date to 2,500–2,300 YBP from Caution Bay near Port Moresby, but no ancient New Guinea singing dog remains have been found.


title: Dingo

text: The earliest dingo skeletal remains in Australia are estimated at 3,450 YBP from the Mandura Caves on the Nullarbor Plain, south-eastern Western Australia; 3,320 YBP from Woombah Midden near Woombah, New South Wales; and 3,170 YBP from Fromme's Landing on the Murray River near Mannum, South Australia. Dingo bone fragments were found in a rock shelter located at Mount Burr, South Australia, in a layer that was originally dated 7,000-8,500 YBP. Excavations later indicated that the levels had been disturbed, and the dingo remains "probably moved to an earlier level." The dating of these early Australian dingo fossils led to the widely held belief that dingoes first arrived in Australia 4,000 YBP and then took 500 years to disperse around the continent. However, the timing of these skeletal remains was based on the dating of the sediments in which they were discovered, and not the specimens themselves.


title: Dingo

text: In 2018, the oldest skeletal bones from the Madura Caves were directly carbon dated between 3,348 and 3,081 YBP, providing firm evidence of the earliest dingo and that dingoes arrived later than had previously been proposed. The next-most reliable timing is based on desiccated flesh dated 2,200 YBP from Thylacine Hole, 110 km west of Eucla on the Nullarbor Plain, southeastern Western Australia. When dingoes first arrived, they would have been taken up by indigenous Australians, who then provided a network for their swift transfer around the continent. Based on the recorded distribution time for dogs across Tasmania and cats across Australia once indigenous Australians had acquired them, the dispersal of dingoes from their point of landing until they occupied continental Australia is proposed to have taken only 70 years. The red fox is estimated to have dispersed across the continent in only 60–80 years.


title: Dingo

text: At the end of the last glacial maximum and the associated rise in sea levels, Tasmania became separated from the Australian mainland 12,000 YBP, and New Guinea 6,500–8,500 YBP by the inundation of the Sahul Shelf. Fossil remains in Australia date to around 3,500 YBP and no dingo remains have been uncovered in Tasmania, so the dingo is estimated to have arrived in Australia at a time between 3,500 and 12,000 YBP. To reach Australia through the Island Southeast Asia even at the lowest sea level of the last glacial maximum, a journey of at least over open sea between ancient Sunda and Sahul was necessary, so they must have accompanied humans on boats.


title: Dingo

text: Based on a comparison with these early fossils, dingo morphology has not changed over thousands of years. This suggests that no artificial selection has been applied over this period and that the dingo represents an early form of dog. They have lived, bred, and undergone natural selection in the wild, isolated from other canines until the arrival of European settlers, resulting in a unique canid.


title: Dingo

text: Whole genome sequencing indicates that, while dogs are a genetically divergent subspecies of the grey wolf, the dog is not a descendant of the extant grey wolf. Rather, these are sister taxa which share a common ancestor from a ghost population of wolves that disappeared at the end of the Late Pleistocene. The dog and the dingo are not separate species. The dingo and the Basenji are basal members of the domestic dog clade.


title: Dingo

text: Mitochondrial genome sequences indicates that the dingo falls within the domestic dog clade, and that the New Guinea singing dog is genetically closer to those dingoes that live in southeastern Australia than to those that live in the northwest. The dingo and New Guinea singing dog lineage can be traced back from Island Southeast Asia to Mainland Southeast Asia. Gene flow from the genetically divergent Tibetan wolf forms 2% of the dingo's genome, which likely represents ancient admixture in eastern Eurasia.


title: Dingo

text: By the close of the last ice age 11,700 years ago, five ancestral dog lineages had diversified from each other, with one of these being represented today by the New Guinea singing dog. In 2020, the first whole genome sequencing of the dingo and the New Guinea singing dog was undertaken. The study indicates that the ancestral lineage of the dingo/New Guinea singing dog clade arose in southern East Asia, migrated through Island Southeast Asia 9,900 , and reached Australia 8,300  however the human population which brought them remains unknown. The dingo's genome indicates that it was once a domestic dog which commenced a process of feralisation since its arrival 8,300 years ago, with the new environment leading to changes in those genomic regions which regulate metabolism, neurodevelopment, and reproduction.


title: Dingo

text: A recent genetic study shows that the lineage of those dingoes found today in the northwestern part of the Australian continent split from the lineage of the New Guinea singing dog and southeastern dingo 8,300 years ago, followed by a split between the New Guinea singing dog lineage from the southeastern dingo lineage 7,800 years ago. The study proposes that two dingo migrations occurred when sea levels were lower and Australia and New Guinea formed one landmass named Sahul that existed until 6,500–8,000 years ago. Whole genome analysis of the dingo indicates there are three sub-populations which exist in Northeast, Southeast, and West/Central Australia.


title: Dingo

text: The dingo is a medium-sized canid with a lean, hardy body that is adapted for speed, agility, and stamina. The head is the widest part of the body, wedge-shaped, and large in proportion to the body. Captive dingoes are longer and heavier than wild dingoes, as they have access to better food and veterinary care. The average wild dingo male weighs and the female , compared with the captive male and the female . The average wild dingo male length is and the female , compared with the captive male and the female . The average wild dingo male stands at the shoulder height of and the female , compared with the captive male and the female . Dingoes rarely carry excess fat and the wild ones display exposed ribs. Dingoes from northern and northwestern Australia are often larger than those found in central and southern Australia. The dingo is similar to the New Guinea singing dog in morphology apart from the dingo's greater height at the withers.


title: Dingo

text: Compared with the dog, the dingo is able to rotate its wrists and can turn doorknobs or raise latches in order to escape confinement. Dingo shoulder joints are unusually flexible, and they can climb fences, cliffs, trees, and rocks. These adaptations help dingoes climbing in difficult terrain, where they prefer high vantage points. A similar adaptation can be found in the Norwegian Lundehund, which was developed on isolated Norwegian islands to hunt in cliff and rocky areas. Wolves do not have this ability.


title: Dingo

text: Early studies identified the skull as being more like that of the golden jackal than it is to the wolf or coyote. One study proposes that compared with the skull of the dog, the dingo possesses a longer muzzle, longer carnassial teeth, longer and more slender canine teeth, larger auditory bullae, a flatter cranium with a larger sagittal crest, and larger nuchal lines. In 2014, a study was conducted on pre-20th century dingo specimens that are unlikely to have been influenced by later hybridisation. The dingo skull was found to differ relative to the domestic dog by its larger palatal width, longer rostrum, shorter skull height, and wider sagittal crest. However, this was rebutted with the figures falling within the wider range of the domestic dog and that each dog breed differs from the others in skull measurements. Based on a comparison with the remains of a dingo found at Fromme's Landing, the dingo's skull and skeleton have not changed over the past 3,000 years. Compared to the wolf, the dingo possesses a paedomorphic cranium similar to domestic dogs. However, the dingo has a larger brain size compared to dogs of the same body weight, with the dingo being more comparable with the wolf than dogs are. In this respect, the dingo resembles two similar mesopredators, the dhole and the coyote. The eyes are triangular (or almond-shaped) and are hazel to dark in colour with dark rims. The ears are erect and occur high on the skull.


title: Dingo

text: The dingo's three main coat colours are described as being light ginger (or tan), black and tan, and creamy white. The ginger colour ranges from a deep rust to a pale cream and can be found in 74% of dingoes. Often, small white markings are seen on the tip of the tail, the feet, and the chest, but with no large white patches. Some do not exhibit white tips. The black and tan dingoes possess a black coat with a tan muzzle, chest, belly, legs, and feet and can be found in 12% of dingoes. Solid white can be found in 2% of dingoes and solid black 1%. Only three genes affect coat colour in the dingo compared with nine genes in the domestic dog. The ginger colour is dominant and carries the other three main colours – black, tan, and white. White dingoes breed true, and black and tan dingoes breed true; when these cross, the result is a sandy colour. The coat is not oily, nor does it have a dog-like odour. The dingo has a single coat in the tropical north of Australia and a double thick coat in the cold mountains of the south, the undercoat being a wolf-grey colour. Patchy and brindle coat colours can be found in dingoes with no dog ancestry and these colours are less common in dingoes of mixed ancestry.


title: Dingo

text: The dingo's tail is flatish, tapering after mid-length and does not curve over the back, but is carried low.


title: Dingo

text: When walking, the dingo's rear foot steps in line with the front foot, and these do not possess dewclaws.


title: Dingo

text: Dingoes in the wild live 3–5 years with few living past 7–8 years. Some have been recorded living up to 10 years. In captivity, they live for 14–16 years. One dingo has been recorded to live just under 20 years.


title: Dingo

text: The wolf-like canids are a group of large carnivores that are genetically closely related because their chromosomes number 78, therefore they can potentially interbreed to produce fertile hybrids. In the Australian wild there exist dingoes, feral dogs, and the crossings of these two, which produce dingo–dog hybrids. Most studies looking at the distribution of dingoes focus on the distribution of dingo-dog hybrids, instead.


title: Dingo

text: Dingoes occurred throughout mainland Australia before European settlement. They are not found in the fossil record of Tasmania, so they apparently arrived in Australia after Tasmania had separated from the mainland due to rising sea levels. The introduction of agriculture reduced dingo distribution, and by the early 1900s, large barrier fences, including the Dingo Fence, excluded them from the sheep-grazing areas. Land clearance, poisoning, and trapping caused the extinction of the dingo and hybrids from most of their former range in southern Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. Today, they are absent from most of New South Wales, Victoria, the southeastern third of South Australia, and the southwestern tip of Western Australia. They are sparse in the eastern half of Western Australia and the adjoining areas of the Northern Territory and South Australia. They are regarded as common across the remainder of the continent.


title: Dingo

text: The dingo could be considered an ecotype or an ecospecies that has adapted to Australia's unique environment. The dingo's present distribution covers a variety of habitats, including the temperate regions of eastern Australia, the alpine moorlands of the eastern highlands, the arid hot deserts of Central Australia, and the tropical forests and wetlands of Northern Australia. The occupation of, and adaption to, these habitats may have been assisted by their relationship with indigenous Australians.


title: Dingo

text: A 20-year study of the dingo's diet was conducted across Australia by the federal and state governments. These examined a total of 13,000 stomach contents and fecal samples. For the fecal samples, determining the matching tracks of foxes and feral cats was possible without including these samples in the study, but in distinguishing between the tracks left by dingoes and those of dingo hybrids or feral dogs was impossible. The study found that these canines prey on 177 species represented by 72.3% mammals (71 species), 18.8% birds (53 species), 3.3% vegetation (seeds), 1.8% reptiles (23 species), and 3.8% insects, fish, crabs, and frogs (28 species). The relative proportions of prey are much the same across Australia, apart from more birds being eaten in the north and south-east coastal regions, and more lizards in Central Australia. Some 80% of the diet consisted of 10 species: red kangaroo, swamp wallaby, cattle, dusky rat, magpie goose, common brushtail possum, long-haired rat, agile wallaby, European rabbit, and common wombat. Of the mammals eaten, 20% could be regarded as large.


title: Dingo

text: However, the relative proportions of the size of prey mammals varied across regions. In the tropical coast region of South Australian, agile wallabies, dusky rats, and magpie geese formed 80% of the diet. In Central Australia, the rabbit has become a substitute for native mammals, and during droughts, cattle carcasses provide most of the diet. On the Barkly Tableland, no rabbits occur nor does any native species dominate the diet, except for long-haired rats that form occasional plagues. In the Fortescue River region, the large red kangaroo and common wallaroo dominate the diet, as few smaller mammals are found in this area. On the Nullarbor Plain, rabbits and red kangaroos dominate the diet, and twice as much rabbit eaten as red kangaroo. In the temperate mountains of eastern Australia, swamp wallaby and red-necked wallaby dominate the diet on the lower slopes and wombat on the higher slopes. Possums are commonly eaten here when found on the ground. In coastal regions, dingoes patrol the beaches for washed-up fish, seals, penguins, and other birds.


title: Dingo

text: Dingoes drink about a litre of water each day in the summer and half a litre in winter. In arid regions during the winter, dingoes may live from the liquid in the bodies of their prey, as long as the number of prey is sufficient. In arid Central Australia, weaned pups draw most of their water from their food. There, regurgitation of water by the females for the pups was observed. During lactation, captive females have no higher need of water than usual, since they consume the urine and feces of the pups, thus recycling the water and keeping the den clean. Tracked dingoes in the Strzelecki Desert regularly visited water-points every 3–5 days, with two dingoes surviving 22 days without water during both winter and summer.


title: Dingo

text: Dingoes, dingo hybrids, and feral dogs usually attack from the rear as they pursue their prey. They kill their prey by biting the throat, which damages the trachea and the major blood vessels of the neck. The size of the hunting pack is determined by the type of prey targeted, with large packs formed to help hunt large prey. Large prey can include kangaroos, cattle, water buffalo, and feral horses. Dingoes will assess and target prey based on the prey's ability to inflict damage on dingoes. Large kangaroos are the most commonly killed prey. The main tactic is to sight the kangaroo, bail it up, then kill it. Dingoes typically hunt large kangaroos by having lead dingoes chase the quarry toward the paths of their pack mates, which are skilled at cutting corners in chases. The kangaroo becomes exhausted and is then killed. This same tactic is used by wolves, African wild dogs, and hyenas. Another tactic shared with African wild dogs is a relay pursuit until the prey is exhausted. A pack of dingoes is three times as likely to bring down a kangaroo than an individual because the killing is done by those following the lead chaser, which has also become exhausted. Two patterns are seen for the final stage of the attack. An adult or juvenile kangaroo is nipped at the hamstrings of the hind legs to slow it before an attack to the throat. A small adult female or juvenile is bitten on the neck or back by dingoes running beside it. In one area of Central Australia, dingoes hunt kangaroos by chasing them into a wire fence, where they become temporarily immobilised. The largest male red kangaroos tend to ignore dingoes, even when the dingoes are hunting the younger males and females. A large eastern grey kangaroo successfully fought off an attack by a single dingo that lasted over an hour. Wallabies are hunted in a similar manner to kangaroos, the difference being that a single dingo hunts using scent rather than sight and the hunt may last several hours.


title: Dingo

text: Dingo packs may attack young cattle and buffalo, but never healthy, grown adults. They focus on the sick or injured young. The tactics include harassing a mother with young, panicking a herd to separate the adults from the young, or watching a herd and looking for any unusual behaviour that might then be exploited. One 1992 study in the Fortescue River region observed that cattle defend their calves by circling around the calves or aggressively charging dingoes. In one study of 26 approaches, 24 were by more than one dingo and only four resulted in calves being killed. Dingoes often revisited carcasses. They did not touch fresh cattle carcasses until these were largely skin and bone, and even when these were plentiful, they still preferred to hunt kangaroos. Of 68 chases of sheep, 26 sheep were seriously injured, but only eight were killed. The dingoes could outrun the sheep and the sheep were defenceless. However, the dingoes in general appeared not to be motivated to kill sheep, and in many cases just loped alongside the sheep before veering off to chase another sheep. For those that did kill and consume sheep, a large quantity of kangaroo was still in their diet, indicating once again a preference for kangaroo.


title: Dingo

text: Lone dingoes can run down a rabbit, but are more successful by targeting kittens near rabbit warrens. Dingoes take nestling birds, in addition to birds that are moulting and therefore cannot fly. Predators often use highly intelligent hunting techniques. Dingoes on Fraser Island have been observed using waves to entrap, tire, and help drown an adult swamp wallaby and an echidna. In the coastal wetlands of northern Australia, dingoes depend on magpie geese for a large part of their diet and a lone dingo sometimes distracts these while a white-breasted sea eagle makes a kill that is too heavy for it to carry off, with the dingo then driving the sea eagle away. They also scavenge on prey dropped from the nesting platforms of sea eagles. Lone dingoes may hunt small rodents and grasshoppers in grass by using their senses of smell and hearing, then pouncing on them with their forepaws.


title: Dingo

text: Dingoes and their hybrids co-exist with the native quoll. They also co-occur in the same territory as the introduced European red fox and feral cat, but little is known about the relationships between these three. Dingoes and their hybrids can drive off foxes from sources of water and occasionally eat feral cats. Dingoes can be killed by feral water buffalo and cattle goring and kicking them, from snake bite, and predation on their pups (and occasionally adults) by wedge-tailed eagles.


title: Dingo

text: Like all domestic dogs, dingoes tend towards phonetic communication. However, in contrast to domestic dogs, dingoes howl and whimper more, and bark less. Eight sound classes with 19 sound types have been identified.


title: Dingo

text: Compared to most domestic dogs, the bark of a dingo is short and monosyllabic, and is rarely used. Barking was observed to make up only 5% of vocalisations. Dog barking has always been distinct from wolf barking. Australian dingoes bark mainly in swooshing noises or in a mixture of atonal and tonal sounds. In addition, barking is almost exclusively used for giving warnings. Warn-barking in a homotypical sequence and a kind of "warn-howling" in a heterotypical sequence have also been observed. The bark-howling starts with several barks and then fades into a rising and ebbing howl and is probably (similar to coughing) used to warn the puppies and members of the pack. Additionally, dingoes emit a sort of "wailing" sound, which they mostly use when approaching a watering hole, probably to warn already present dingoes.


title: Dingo

text: According to the present state of knowledge, getting Australian dingoes to bark more frequently by putting them in contact with other domestic dogs is not possible. However, German zoologist Alfred Brehm reported a dingo that learned the more "typical" form of barking and how to use it, while its brother did not. Whether dingoes bark or bark-howl less frequently in general is not certain.


title: Dingo

text: Dingoes have three basic forms of howling (moans, bark-howls, and snuffs) with at least 10 variations. Usually, three kinds of howls are distinguished: long and persistent, rising and ebbing, and short and abrupt.


title: Dingo

text: Observations have shown that each kind of howling has several variations, though their purpose is unknown. The frequency of howling varies with the season and time of day, and is also influenced by breeding, migration, lactation, social stability, and dispersal behaviour. Howling can be more frequent in times of food shortage, because the dogs become more widely distributed within their home range.


title: Dingo

text: Additionally, howling seems to have a group function, and is sometimes an expression of joy (for example, greeting-howls). Overall, howling was observed less frequently in dingoes than among grey wolves. It may happen that one dog will begin to howl, and several or all other dogs will howl back and bark from time to time. In the wilderness, dingoes howl over long distances to attract other members of the pack, to find other dogs, or to keep intruders at bay. Dingoes howl in chorus with significant pitches, and with increasing number of pack members, the variability of pitches also increases. Therefore, dingoes are suspected to be able to measure the size of a pack without visual contact. Moreover, their highly variable chorus howls have been proposed to generate a confounding effect in the receivers by making pack size appear larger.


title: Dingo

text: Growling, making up about 65% of the vocalisations, is used in an agonistic context for dominance, and as a defensive sound. Similar to many domestic dogs, a reactive usage of defensive growling is only rarely observed. Growling very often occurs in combination with other sounds, and has been observed almost exclusively in swooshing noises (similar to barking).


title: Dingo

text: During observations in Germany, dingoes were heard to produce a sound that observers have called "Schrappen". It was only observed in an agonistic context, mostly as a defence against obtrusive pups or for defending resources. It was described as a bite intention, during which the receiver is never touched or hurt. Only a clashing of the teeth could be heard.


title: Dingo

text: Aside from vocal communication, dingoes communicate, like all domestic dogs, via scent marking specific objects (for example, "Spinifex") or places (such as waters, trails, and hunting grounds) using chemical signals from their urine, feces, and scent glands. Males scent mark more frequently than females, especially during the mating season. They also scent rub, whereby a dog rolls its neck, shoulders, or back on something that is usually associated with food or the scent markings of other dogs.


title: Dingo

text: Dingoes tend to be nocturnal in warmer regions, but less so in cooler areas. Their main period of activity is around dusk and dawn. The periods of activity are short (often less than 1 hour) with short times of resting. Dingoes have two kinds of movement: a searching movement (apparently associated with hunting) and an exploratory movement (probably for contact and communication with other dogs). According to studies in Queensland, the wild dogs (dingo hybrids) there move freely at night through urban areas and cross streets and seem to get along quite well.


title: Dingo

text: The dingo's social behaviour is about as flexible as that of a coyote or grey wolf, which is perhaps one of the reasons the dingo was originally believed to have descended from the Indian wolf. While young males are often solitary and nomadic in nature, breeding adults often form a settled pack. However, in areas of the dingo's habitat with a widely spaced population, breeding pairs remain together, apart from others. Dingo distributions are a single dingo, 73%; two dingoes, 16%; three dingoes, 5%; four dingoes, 3%; and packs of five to seven dingoes, 3%. A dingo pack usually consists of a mated pair, their offspring from the current year, and sometimes offspring from the previous year.


title: Dingo

text: Where conditions are favourable among dingo packs, the pack is stable with a distinct territory and little overlap between neighbours. The size of packs often appears to correspond to the size of prey available in the pack's territory. Desert areas have smaller groups of dingoes with a more loose territorial behaviour and sharing of the water sites. The average monthly pack size was noted to be between three and 12 members.


title: Dingo

text: Similar to other canids, a dingo pack largely consists of a mated pair, their current year's offspring, and occasionally a previous year's offspring. Dominance hierarchies exist both between and within males and females, with males usually being more dominant than females. However, a few exceptions have been noted in captive packs. During travel, while eating prey, or when approaching a water source for the first time, the breeding male will be seen as the leader, or alpha. Subordinate dingoes approach a more dominant dog in a slightly crouched posture, ears flat, and tail down, to ensure peace in the pack. Establishment of artificial packs in captive dingoes has failed.


title: Dingo

text: Dingoes breed once annually, depending on the estrous cycle of the females, which according to most sources, only come in heat once per year. Dingo females can come in heat twice per year, but can only be pregnant once a year, with the second time only seeming to be pregnant.


title: Dingo

text: Males are virile throughout the year in most regions, but have a lower sperm production during the summer in most cases. During studies on dingoes from the Eastern Highlands and Central Australia in captivity, no specific breeding cycle could be observed. All were potent throughout the year. The breeding was only regulated by the heat of the females. A rise in testosterone was observed in the males during the breeding season, but this was attributed to the heat of the females and copulation. In contrast to the captive dingoes, captured dingo males from Central Australia did show evidence of a male breeding cycle. Those dingoes showed no interest in females in heat (this time other domestic dogs) outside of the mating season (January to July) and did not breed with them.


title: Dingo

text: The mating season usually occurs in Australia between March and May (according to other sources between April and June). During this time, dingoes may actively defend their territories using vocalisations, dominance behaviour, growling, and barking.


title: Dingo

text: Most females in the wild start breeding at the age of 2 years. Within packs, the alpha female tends to go into heat before subordinates and actively suppresses mating attempts by other females. Males become sexually mature between the ages of 1 and 3 years. The precise start of breeding varies depending on age, social status, geographic range, and seasonal conditions. Among dingoes in captivity, the pre-estrus was observed to last 10–12 days. However, the pre-estrus may last as long as 60 days in the wild.


title: Dingo

text: In general, the only dingoes in a pack that successfully breed are the alpha pair, and the other pack members help with raising the pups. Subordinates are actively prevented from breeding by the alpha pair and some subordinate females have a false pregnancy. Low-ranking or solitary dingoes can successfully breed if the pack structure breaks up.


title: Dingo

text: The gestation period lasts for 61–69 days and the size of the litter can range from one to 10 (usually five) pups, with the number of males born tending to be higher than that of females. Pups of subordinate females usually get killed by the alpha female, which causes the population increase to be low even in good times. This behaviour possibly developed as an adaptation to the fluctuating environmental conditions in Australia. Pups are usually born between May and August (the winter period), but in tropical regions, breeding can occur at any time of the year.


title: Dingo

text: At the age of 3 weeks, the pups leave the den for the first time, and leave it completely at 8 weeks. Dens are mostly underground. Reports exist of dens in abandoned rabbit burrows, rock formations, under boulders in dry creeks, under large spinifex, in hollow logs, and augmented burrows of monitor lizards and wombat burrows. The pups usually stray around the den within a radius of , and are accompanied by older dogs during longer travels. The transition to consuming solid food is normally accompanied by all members of the pack during the age of 9 to 12 weeks. Apart from their own experiences, pups also learn through observation. Young dingoes usually become independent at the age of 3–6 months or they disperse at the age of 10 months, when the next mating season starts.


title: Dingo

text: Dingoes usually remain in one area and do not undergo seasonal migrations. However, during times of famine, even in normally "safe" areas, dingoes travel into pastoral areas, where intensive, human-induced control measures are undertaken. In Western Australia in the 1970s, young dogs were found to travel for long distances when necessary. About 10% of the dogs captured—all younger than 12 months—were later recaptured far away from their first location. Among these, 10% of the travelled distance for males was and for females . Therefore, travelling dingoes had lower chances of survival in foreign territories, and they are apparently unlikely to survive long migrations through occupied territories. The rarity of long migration routes seemed to confirm this. During investigations in the Nullarbor Plain, even longer migration routes were recorded. The longest recorded migration route of a radio-collared dingo was about .


title: Dingo

text: Dingoes generally avoid conflict with humans, but they are large enough to be dangerous. Most attacks involve people feeding wild dingoes, particularly on Fraser Island, which is a special centre of dingo-related tourism. The vast majority of dingo attacks are minor in nature, but some can be major, and a few have been fatal: the death of 2-month-old Azaria Chamberlain in the Northern Territory in 1980 is one of them. Many Australian national parks have signs advising visitors not to feed wildlife, partly because this practice is not healthy for the animals, and partly because it may encourage undesirable behaviour, such as snatching or biting by dingoes, kangaroos, goannas, and some birds.


title: Dingo

text: Some researchers propose that the dingo caused the extirpation of the thylacine, the Tasmanian devil, and the Tasmanian native hen from mainland Australia because of the correlation in space and time with the dingo's arrival. Recent studies have questioned this proposal, suggesting that climate change and increasing human populations may have been the cause. Dingoes do not seem to have had the same ecological impact that the red fox have in modern times. This might be connected to the dingo's way of hunting and the size of their favoured prey, as well as to the low number of dingoes in the time before European colonisation.


title: Dingo

text: The assumption that dingoes and thylacines were competitors for the same prey stems from their external similarities; the thylacine had a stronger and more efficient bite, but was probably dependent on relatively small prey, while the dingo's stronger skull and neck would have allowed it to bring down larger prey. The dingo was probably a superior hunter, as it hunted cooperatively in packs and could better defend resources, while the thylacine was probably more solitary. Also, wild dingo populations might have had demographic support from conspecific living with humans.


title: Dingo

text: The extinction of the thylacine on the Australian mainland around 2,000 years ago has also been linked to changes in climate and land use by indigenous Australians. Naming the dingo as the cause of the extinction is plausible, but significant morphological differences between the two suggest that the ecological overlapping of the species might be exaggerated. The dingo has the dentition of a generalist, while the thylacine had the dentition of a specialist carnivore without any signs of consumption of carrion or bones.


title: Dingo

text: This theory does not explain how the Tasmanian devil and the dingo coexisted on the same continent until about 430 years ago, when the dingo supposedly caused the Tasmanian devil's demise. The group dynamics of dingoes should have successfully kept devils away from carrion, and since dingoes are able to break bones, little would have been left for the devils to scavenge. Additionally, devils are successful hunters of small- to medium-sized prey, so overlapping of the species should have occurred in this area, too. Furthermore, the arguments that the dingo caused the extinction of the thylacine, the devil, and the hen are in direct conflict with each other. If the dingo were really so similar to the thylacine and the Tasmanian devil in its ecological role and suppressed both, then coexisting with both for such an extended time is strange. Although this is a possible result of the dingo's introduction, critics regard the evidence for this as insubstantial.


title: Dingo

text: In 2017, a genetic study found that the population of the northwestern dingoes had commenced expanding since 4,000—6,000 years ago. This was proposed to be due either to their first arrival in Australia or to the commencement of the extinction of the thylacine, with the dingo expanding into the thylacine's former range.


title: Dingo

text: In 1976, the Australian Native Dog Training Society of NSW Ltd. was founded, but has now ceased. In 1994, the Australian National Kennel Council recognised a dingo breed standard within its Hounds group. The dingo is not recognised as a dog breed by the Fédération Cynologique Internationale.


title: Dingo

text: Dingoes can be very tame when they come in frequent contact with humans. Furthermore, some dingoes live with humans (due to practical, as well as emotional reasons). Many indigenous Australians and early European settlers lived alongside dingoes. Indigenous Australians would take dingo pups from the den and tame them until sexual maturity and the dogs would leave. Alfred Brehm reported cases where dingoes were completely tame and, in some cases, behaved exactly like other domestic dogs (one was used for shepherding heavy livestock), as well as specimens that remained wild and shy. He also reported about dingoes that were aggressive and completely uncontrollable, but he was of the opinion that these reports "should not get more attention than they deserve," since the behaviour depends on how the dingo was raised since early puppyhood. He believed that these dogs could become very decent pets.


title: Dingo

text: The ownership of dingoes as pets and their breeding is widely criticised. The main criticism is that the activities and the resulting consequences of the dingo conservation groups, "dingo farms" and legislation for legal ownership of dingoes for people in public, is seen to be an additional threat to the survival of the pure dingoes. This fear exists because the majority of these breeding activities effectively expedite the interbreeding of dingoes and other domestic dogs, when the identification of a pure dingo is not absolutely correct respectively when hybrids are sold as "pure" dingoes.


title: Dingo

text: Supporters of breeding programmes are only mildly optimistic about a successful outcome. Success in the form of a population viable for future re-wilding cannot be easily accomplished. According to David Jenkins, a research fellow at Charles Sturt University, the breeding and reintroduction of pure dingoes is no easy option and, as of 2007, there were no studies that seriously dealt with this topic, especially in areas where dingo populations are already present.


title: Dingo

text: An additional threat is that breeders may unconsciously select tamer dingoes by breeding individuals who are easier to manage. Therefore, it may happen that, over the years, the tame populations may become less suitable for living in the wild than their ancestors. In addition, a loss of genetic diversity (thus resulting in a higher susceptibility to diseases) might occur due to a small founding population, and negative changes could occur simply because the dogs were captive-bred. Furthermore, some features that are necessary for survival in the wild, such as hunting techniques, might "fade" under the conditions of domestication, because they are no longer needed.


title: Dingo

text: The dingo is regarded as part of the native Australian fauna by many environmentalists and biologists, as these dogs existed on the continent before the arrival of the Europeans and a mutual adaptation of the dingoes and their surrounding ecosystems had occurred.


title: Dingo

text: Much of the present place of wild dogs in the Australian ecosystem, especially in the urban areas, remains unknown. Although the ecological role of dingoes in Northern and Central Australia is well understood, the same does not apply to the role of wild dogs in the east of the continent. In contrast to some claims, dingoes are assumed to have a positive impact on biodiversity in areas where feral foxes are present.


title: Dingo

text: Dingoes are regarded as apex predators and possibly perform an ecological key function. Likely (with increasing evidence from scientific research), they control the diversity of the ecosystem by limiting the number of prey and keeping the competition in check. Wild dogs hunt feral livestock such as goats and pigs, as well as native prey and introduced animals. The low number of feral goats in Northern Australia is possibly caused by the presence of the dingoes, but whether they control the goats' numbers is still disputable. Studies from 1995 in the northern wet forests of Australia found the dingoes there did not reduce the number of feral pigs, but their predation only affects the pig population together with the presence of water buffaloes (which hinder the pigs' access to food).


title: Dingo

text: Observations concerning the mutual impact of dingoes and red fox and cat populations suggest dingoes limit the access of foxes and cats to certain resources. As a result, a disappearance of the dingoes may cause an increase of red fox and feral cat numbers, and therefore, a higher pressure on native animals. These studies found the presence of dingoes is one of the factors that keep fox numbers in an area low, and therefore reduces pressure on native animals, which then do not disappear from the area. The countrywide numbers of red foxes are especially high where dingo numbers are low, but other factors might responsible for this, depending on the area. Evidence was found for a competition between wild dogs and red foxes in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, since many overlaps occurred in the spectrum of preferred prey, but only evidence for local competition, not on a grand scale, was found.


title: Dingo

text: Also, dingoes can live with red foxes and feral cats without reducing their numbers in areas with sufficient food resources (for example, high rabbit numbers) and hiding places. Nearly nothing is known about the relationship of wild dogs and feral cats, except both mostly live in the same areas. Although wild dogs also eat cats, whether this affects the cat populations is not known.


title: Dingo

text: Additionally, the disappearance of dingoes might increase the prevalence of kangaroo, rabbit, and Australian brushturkey numbers. In the areas outside the Dingo Fence, the number of dingoes and emus is lower than in the areas inside. However, the numbers changed depending on the habitat. Since the environment is the same on both sides of the fence, the dingo was assumed to be a strong factor for the regulation of these species. Therefore, some people demand that dingo numbers should be allowed to increase or dingoes should be reintroduced in areas with low dingo populations to lower the pressure on endangered populations of native species and to reintroduce them in certain areas. In addition, the presence of the Australian brushturkey in Queensland increased significantly after dingo baiting was conducted.


title: Dingo

text: Cultural opinions about the dingo are often based on its perceived "cunning", and the idea that it is an intermediate between civilisation and wildness.


title: Dingo

text: Some of the early European settlers looked on dingoes as domestic dogs, while others thought they were more like wolves. Over the years, dingoes began to attack sheep, and their relationship to the Europeans changed very quickly; they were regarded as devious and cowardly, since they did not fight bravely in the eyes of the Europeans, and vanished into the bush. Additionally, they were seen as promiscuous or as devils with a venomous bite or saliva, so they could be killed unreservedly. Over the years, dingo trappers gained some prestige for their work, especially when they managed to kill hard-to-catch dingoes. Dingoes were associated with thieves, vagabonds, bushrangers, and parliamentary opponents. From the 1960s, politicians began calling their opponents "dingo", meaning they were cowardly and treacherous, and it has become a popular form of attack since then. Today, the word "dingo" still stands for "coward" and "cheat", with verb and adjective forms used, as well.


title: Dingo

text: Ceremonies (like a keen at the Cape York Peninsula in the form of howling) and dreamtime stories are connected to the dingo, which were passed down through the generations.


title: Dingo

text: The dingo plays a prominent role in the Dreamtime stories of indigenous Australians, but it is rarely depicted in their cave paintings when compared with the extinct thylacine. One of the tribal elders of the people of the Yarralin, Northern Territory region tells that the Dreamtime dingo is the ancestor of both dingoes and humans. The dingoes "are what we would be if we were not what we are."


title: Dingo

text: Similar to how Europeans acquired dingoes, the Aboriginal people of Australia acquired dogs from the immigrants very quickly. This process was so fast that Francis Barrallier (surveyor on early expeditions around the colony at Port Jackson) discovered in 1802 that five dogs of European origin were there before him. One theory holds that other domestic dogs adopt the role of the "pure" dingo. Introduced animals, such as the water buffalo and the domestic cat, have been adopted into the indigenous Aboriginal culture in the forms of rituals, traditional paintings, and dreamtime stories.


title: Dingo

text: Most of the published myths originate from the Western Desert and show a remarkable complexity. In some stories, dingoes are the central characters, while in others, they are only minor ones. One time, an ancestor from the Dreamtime created humans and dingoes or gave them their current shape. Stories mention creation, socially acceptable behaviour, and explanations why some things are the way they are. Myths exist about shapeshifters (human to dingo or vice versa), "dingo-people", and the creation of certain landscapes or elements of those landscapes, like waterholes or mountains.


title: Dingo

text: Livestock farming commenced expanding across Australia from the early 1800s, which led to conflict between the dingo and graziers. Sheep, and to a lesser extent cattle, are an easy target for dingoes. The pastoralists and the government bodies that support this industry have shot, trapped, and poisoned dingoes or destroyed dingo pups in their dens. After two centuries of persecution, the dingo or dingo–dog hybrids can still be found across most of the continent.


title: Dingo

text: Research on the real extent of the damage and the reason for this problem only started recently. Livestock can die from many causes, and when the carcass is found, determining with certainty the cause of death is often difficult. Since the outcome of an attack on livestock depends to a high degree on the behaviour and experience of the predator and the prey, only direct observation is certain to determine whether an attack was by dingoes or other domestic dogs. Even the existence of remnants of the prey in the scat of wild dogs does not prove they are pests, since wild dogs also eat carrion.


title: Dingo

text: The cattle industry can tolerate low to moderate, and sometimes high, grades of wild dogs (therefore dingoes are not so easily regarded as pests in these areas). In the case of sheep and goats, a zero-tolerance attitude is common. The biggest threats are dogs that live inside or near the paddock areas. The extent of sheep loss is hard to determine due to the wide pasture lands in some parts of Australia.


title: Dingo

text: In 2006, cattle losses in the Northern Territory rangeland grazing areas were estimated to be up to 30%.


title: Dingo

text: Therefore, factors such as availability of native prey, as well as the defending behaviour and health of the cattle, play an important role in the number of losses. A study in Central Australia in 2003 confirmed that dingoes only have a low impact on cattle numbers when a sufficient supply of other prey (such as kangaroos and rabbits) is available. In some parts of Australia, the loss of calves is assumed to be minimised if horned cattle are used instead of polled. The precise economic impact is not known in this case, and the rescue of some calves is unlikely to compensate for the necessary costs of control measures. Calves usually suffer less lethal wounds than sheep due to their size and the protection by the adult cattle, so have a higher chance of surviving an attack. As a result, the evidence of a dog attack may only be discovered after the cattle have been herded back into the enclosure, and signs such as bitten ears, tails, and other wounds are discovered.


title: Dingo

text: The opinions of cattle owners regarding dingoes are more variable than those of sheep owners. Some cattle owners believe that the weakened mother losing her calf is better in times of drought so that she does not have to care for her calf, too. Therefore, these owners are more hesitant to kill dingoes. The cattle industry may benefit from the predation of dingoes on rabbits, kangaroos, and rats. Furthermore, the mortality rate of calves has many possible causes, and discriminating between them is difficult. The only reliable method to document the damage would be to document all pregnant cows, then observe their development and those of their calves. The loss of calves in observed areas where dingoes were controlled was higher than in other areas. Loss of livestock is, therefore, not necessarily caused by the occurrence of dingoes and is independent from wild dogs. One researcher has stated that for cattle stations where dingoes were controlled, kangaroos were abundant, and this affects the availability of grass.


title: Dingo

text: Domestic dogs are the only terrestrial predators in Australia that are big enough to kill fully grown sheep, and only a few sheep manage to recover from the severe injuries. In the case of lambs, death can have many causes apart from attacks by predators, which are blamed for the deaths because they eat from the carcasses. Although attacks by red foxes are possible, such attacks are more rare than previously thought. The fact that the sheep and goat industry is much more susceptible to damage caused by wild dogs than the cattle industry is mostly due to two factors – the flight behaviour of the sheep and their tendency to flock together in the face of danger, and the hunting methods of wild dogs, along with their efficient way of handling goat and sheep.


title: Dingo

text: Therefore, the damage to the livestock industry does not correlate to the numbers of wild dogs in an area (except that no damage occurs where no wild dogs occur).


title: Dingo

text: According to a report from the government of Queensland, wild dogs cost the state about $30 million annually due to livestock losses, the spread of diseases, and control measures. Losses for the livestock industry alone were estimated to be as high as $18 million. In Barcaldine, Queensland, up to one-fifth of all sheep are killed by dingoes annually, a situation which has been described as an "epidemic". According to a survey among cattle owners in 1995, performed by the Park and Wildlife Service, owners estimated their annual losses due to wild dogs (depending on the district) to be from 1.6% to 7.1%.


title: Dingo

text: In 2018, a study in northern South Australia indicates that fetal/calf loss average 18.6%, with no significant reduction due to dingo baiting. The calf losses did not correlate with increased dingo activity, and the cattle diseases pestivirus and leptospirosis were a major cause. Dingoes then scavenged on the carcasses. There was also evidence of dingo predation on calves.


title: Dingo

text: Among the indigenous Australians, dingoes were also used as hunting aids, living hot water bottles, and camp dogs. Their scalps were used as a kind of currency, their teeth were traditionally used for decorative purposes, and their fur for traditional costumes.


title: Dingo

text: Sometimes "pure" dingoes are important for tourism, when they are used to attract visitors. However, this seems to be common only on Fraser Island, where the dingoes are extensively used as a symbol to enhance the attraction of the island. Tourists are drawn to the experience of personally interacting with dingoes. Pictures of dingoes appear on brochures, many websites, and postcards advertising the island.


title: Dingo

text: The dingo is recognised as a native animal under the laws of all Australian jurisdictions. Australia has over 500 national parks of which all but six are managed by the states and territories. , the legal status of the dingo varies between these jurisdictions and in some instances it varies between different regions of a single jurisdiction. some of these jurisdictions classify dingoes as an invasive native.


title: Dingo

text: Dingo attacks on livestock led to widescale efforts to repel them from areas with intensive agricultural usage, and all states and territories have enacted laws for the control of dingoes. In the early 20th century, fences were erected to keep dingoes away from areas frequented by sheep, and a tendency to routinely eradicate dingoes developed among some livestock owners. Established methods for the control of dingoes in sheep areas entailed the employment of specific workers on every property. The job of these people (who were nicknamed "doggers") was to reduce the number of dingoes by using steel traps, baits, firearms and other methods. The responsibility for the control of wild dogs lay solely in the hands of the landowners. At the same time, the government was forced to control the number of dingoes. As a result, a number of measures for the control of dingoes developed over time. It was also considered that dingoes travel over long distances to reach areas with richer prey populations, and the control methods were often concentrated along "paths" or "trails" and in areas that were far away from sheep areas. All dingoes were regarded as a potential danger and were hunted.


title: Dingo

text: Apart from the introduction of the poison 1080 (extensively used for 40 years and nicknamed "doggone"), the methods and strategies for controlling wild dogs have changed little over time. Information concerning cultural importance to indigenous people and the importance of dingoes and the impact of control measures on other species is also lacking in some areas. Historically, the attitudes and needs of indigenous people were not taken into account when dingoes were controlled. Other factors that might be taken into account are the genetic status (degree of interbreeding) of dingoes in these areas, ownership and land usage, as well as a reduction of killing measures to areas outside of the zones. However, most control measures and the appropriate studies are there to minimise the loss of livestock and not to protect dingoes.


title: Dingo

text: Increasing pressure from environmentalists against the random killing of dingoes, as well as the impact on other animals, demanded that more information needed to be gathered to prove the necessity of control measures and to disprove the claim of unnecessary killings. Today, permanent population control is regarded as necessary to reduce the impact of all wild dogs and to ensure the survival of the "pure" dingo in the wild.


title: Dingo

text: To protect livestock, livestock guardian dogs (for example, Maremmas), donkeys, alpacas and llamas are used.<ref name="wilddogs/dingo"></ref>


title: Dingo

text: In the 1920s, the Dingo Fence was erected on the basis of the "Wild Dog Act (1921)" and, until 1931, thousands of miles of Dingo Fences had been erected in several areas of South Australia. In the year 1946, these efforts were directed to a single goal, and the Dingo Fence was finally completed. The fence connected with other fences in New South Wales and Queensland. The main responsibilities in maintaining the Dingo Fence still lies with the landowners whose properties border on the fence and who receive financial support from the government.


title: Dingo

text: A reward system (local, as well from the government) was active from 1846 to the end of the 20th century, but there is no evidence that – despite the billions of dollars spent – it was ever an efficient control method. Therefore, its importance declined over time.


title: Dingo

text: Dingo scalping commenced in 1912 with the passage of the Wild Dogs Act by the government of South Australia. In an attempt to reduce depredation on livestock, that government offered a bounty for dingo skins, and this program was later repeated in Western Australia and the Northern Territory. One writer argues that this new legislation and economic driver had significant impacts on Aboriginal society in the region. This act was followed by updates and amendments, including 1931, 1938, and 1948.


title: Dingo

text: Baits with the poison 1080 are regarded as the fastest and safest method for dog control, since they are extremely susceptible. Even small amounts of poison per dog are sufficient (0.3 mg per kg). The application of aerial baiting is regulated in the Commonwealth by the "Civil Aviation Regulations (1988)". The assumption that the tiger quoll might be damaged by the poison led to the dwindling of areas where aerial baiting could be performed. In areas where aerial baiting is no longer possible, it is necessary to put down baits.


title: Dingo

text: Over the last years, cyanide-ejectors and protection collars (filled with 1080 on certain spots) have been tested.


title: Dingo

text: In 2016, controversy surrounded a plan to inject a population of dingoes on Pelorus Island, off the coast of northern Queensland, Australia, with pills that would release a fatal dose of 1080 poison two years after the dingoes were to be intentionally released to help eradicate goats. The dingoes were dubbed 'death-row dingoes', and the plan was blocked due to concerns for a locally threatened shorebird.


title: Dingo

text: Owners of dingoes and other domestic dogs are sometimes asked to neuter their pets and keep them under observation to reduce the number of stray/feral dogs and prevent interbreeding with dingoes.


title: Dingo

text: The efficiency of control measures was questioned in the past and is often questioned today, as well as whether they stand in a good cost-benefit ratio. The premium system proved to be susceptible to deception and to be useless on a large scale, and can therefore only be used for getting rid of "problem-dogs". Animal traps are considered inhumane and inefficient on a large scale, due to the limited efficacy of baits. Based on studies, it is assumed that only young dogs that would have died anyway can be captured. Furthermore, wild dogs are capable of learning and sometimes are able to detect and avoid traps quite efficiently. In one case, a dingo bitch followed a dogger and triggered his traps one after another by carefully pushing her paw through the sand that covered the trap.


title: Dingo

text: Poisonous baits can be very effective when they are of good meat quality; however, they do not last long and are occasionally taken by red foxes, quolls, ants and birds. Aerial baiting can nearly eliminate whole dingo populations. Livestock guardian dogs can effectively minimise livestock losses, but are less effective on wide open areas with widely distributed livestock. Furthermore, they can be a danger to the livestock or be killed by control measures themselves when they are not sufficiently supervised by their owners. Fences are reliable in keeping wild dogs from entering certain areas, but they are expensive to build, need permanent maintenance, and only cause the problem to be relocated.


title: Dingo

text: Control measures mostly result in smaller packs and a disruption of pack structure. The measures seem to be rather detrimental to the livestock industry because the empty territories are taken over by young dogs and the predation then increases. Nonetheless, it is regarded as unlikely that the control measures could completely eradicate the dingo in Central Australia, and the elimination of all wild dogs is not considered a realistic option.


title: Dingo

text: It has been shown that culling a small percentage of immature dingoes on Fraser Island have little significant negative impact on the overall island population, though this is being disputed.


title: Dingo

text: Until 2004, the dingo was categorised as of "least concern" on the Red List of Threatened Species. In 2008, it was recategorised as "vulnerable," following the decline in numbers to around 30% of "pure" dingoes, due to crossbreeding with domestic dogs. In 2018, the IUCN regarded the dingo as a feral dog and discarded it from the Red List.


title: Dingo

text: Dingoes are reasonably abundant in large parts of Australia, but there is some argument that they are endangered due to interbreeding with other dogs in many parts of their range. Dingoes are not a protected species, but they are regulated under federal law and, thus, their status varies in different states and territories. Dingoes receive varying levels of protection in conservation areas such as national parks and natural reserves in New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Victoria, Arnhem Land and other Aboriginal lands, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and the whole of the Australian Capital Territory. In some states, dingoes are regarded as declared pests and landowners are allowed to control the local populations. Throughout Australia, all other wild dogs are considered pests.


title: Dingo

text: Fraser Island is a 1,840 square kilometre World Heritage Site located off Australia's eastern coast. The island is home to a genetically distinct population of dingoes that are free of dog introgression, estimated to number 120. These dingoes are unique because they are closely related to the southeastern dingoes but share a number of genes with the New Guinea singing dog and show some evidence of admixture with the northwestern dingoes. Because of their conservation value, in February 2013, a report on Fraser Island dingo management strategies was released, with options including ending the intimidation of dingoes, tagging practice changes and regular veterinarian checkups, as well as a permanent dingo sanctuary on the island. According to DNA examinations from 2004, the dingoes of Fraser Island are "pure", as opposed to dingo—dog hybrids. However, skull measurements from the mid-1990s had a different result. A 2013 study showed that dingoes living in the Tanami Desert are among the "purest" in Australia.


title: Dingo

text: Groups that have devoted themselves to the conservation of the "pure" dingo by using breeding programs include the "Australian Native Dog Conservation Society" and the "Australian Dingo Conservation Association". Presently, the efforts of the dingo conservation groups are considered to be ineffective because most of their dogs are untested or are known to be hybrids.


title: Dingo

text: Dingo conservation efforts focus primarily on preventing interbreeding between dingoes and other domestic dogs in order to conserve the population of pure dingoes. This is extremely difficult and costly. Conservation efforts are hampered by the fact that it is not known how many pure dingoes still exist in Australia. Steps to conserve the pure dingo can only be effective when the identification of dingoes and other domestic dogs is absolutely reliable, especially in the case of living specimens. Additionally, conservation efforts are in conflict with control measures.


title: Dingo

text: Conservation of pure and survivable dingo populations is promising in remote areas, where contact with humans and other domestic dogs is rare. Under New South Wales state policy in parks, reserves and other areas not used by agriculture, these populations are only to be controlled when they pose a threat to the survival of other native species. The introduction of "dog-free" buffer zones around areas with pure dingoes is regarded as a realistic method to stop interbreeding. This is enforced in the way that all wild dogs can be killed outside of the conservation areas. However, studies from the year 2007 indicate that even an intensive control of core areas is probably not able to stop the process of interbreeding.


title: Dingo

text: According to the Dingo Discovery Sanctuary and Research Centre, many studies are finding a case for the re-introduction of the dingo into previously occupied areas in order to return some balance to badly degraded areas as a result of "unregulated and ignorant farming practices".


title: Dingo

text: Dingo densities have been measured at up to 0.3 per square kilometre (0.8/sq mi) in both the Guy Fawkes River region of New South Wales and in South Australia at the height of a rabbit plague.


title: Dingo

text: In 2021, DNA testing of over 5,000 wild-living canines from across Australia found that 31 were feral domestic dogs and 27 were first generation hybrids. This finding challenges the perception that dingoes are nearly extinct and have been replaced by feral domestic dogs.


title: Dingo

text: Coat colour cannot be used to distinguish hybrids. Dingo-like domestic dogs and dingo-hybrids can be generally distinguished by their more dog-typical kind of barking exists among the hybrids, and differences in the breeding cycle certain skull characteristics, and genetic analyses can be used for differentiation. Despite all the characteristics that can be used for distinguishing between dingoes and other domestic dogs, there are two problems that should not be underestimated. First, there is no real clarity regarding at what point a dog is regarded as a "pure" dingo, and, secondly, no distinguishing feature is completely reliable—it is not known which characteristics permanently remain under the conditions of natural selection.