K9 Killers Wild Dogs from Government land killing farmers livestock Newsletter page

K9 TIMES Feb 2008 No/1

Welcome to the K9 TIMES. This is your newsletter. We expect news items to come in on what is going on in your area. Getting better. Staying still, trouble with uncooperative bureaucrats. We want policy and legislation change suggestions. We want warm and hard criticism. We want you to spread the word to your friends, neighbours, dog associations, bushmen that are out and about looking and talking to people. Times, dates, locations of dog attack and attacked dogs. We are looking to get technology to access people. Those that don't have a computer or can't drive the things we need to access. We need the help of those people that can and do access computers, to help those that can't.

This is not an exam on your technology skills this is about communicating with as many people on dog attack, disease spread, safety of people and animals. We also need evidence of what's going on. We can appreciate a lot of people haven't got the cameras, don't feel happy about taking photos of injured animals but perhaps you can relate your story by words written "thumb nail dipped in tar," taped and sent by mail. Receive Faxes is a facility we are looking to in the future. We wont be looking at your spelling or your typing skills. Just have a go at some notes and tell us what's going on.

I would like to thank the many people that have already sent in material and we are looking to have that material made available for people as soon as possible. Bear with us as we see what is out there. If you have digital photos to send if you could break them down to 70-200K that would be good if you can't then send a few at a time for our rattly old country land lines.

I hope that we will be able to put together a map of where dogs are occurring and have some idea of how people are dealing with them. Dog drives, traps, aerial, ground, depot baits, sitting in a wombat burrow all night with infra red rifle scope. What has worked what is not. Where are the dogs coming from and how long have you had trouble. Livestock and wildlife kills, disturbances. How the family is getting on coping with the situation. Have you talked with Country Women's Assn, farmers representatives, local council, public land management agencies, police, community health, DPI, RLPB. Those that were helpful and the other?

Would people like a closed chat room set up is another possibility with PINumbers set up or an open forum? Are there any other ideas out there to assist people to network on this issue?

We need statistics to assist in compiling a good argument as to why wild dogs are unacceptable for food security, for security of native species, well being of people.

It is very important that this web site is working for you and that we can have the man power to keep it up to date and rolling along. We want to hear from trappers. Their thoughts about where the dog job is headed and the usefulness of whose managing it. Have you got the cooperation of the people around you to do the job?

What would you change?

Kempsey NSW is presently suffering significant wild dog impacts. In the last few years they have had reported 3050 calves killed, 351 cows killed, 1500 mauled. In about the breeding life of those cattle we have lost over 7 million kilograms of meat at $1.50/kg farm gate or $15+/kg butcher prices we feed our top order predators very well.

Here's a few quotes from leading researchers getting paid to come up with these "flat earth" ideas! recent reports that Professor Chris Dickman from the University of Sydney's Institute of Wildlife Research is suggesting dingos be reintroduced to large tracts of Australian sheep grazing country as a means of preserving native animal species.

CHRIS DICKMAN: The main issue is that we've lost so much biodiversity, so much natural biodiversity, in many areas that we think that dingoes would actually be beneficial in helping to return a lot of that biodiversity to where it's been lost.

CHRIS DICKMAN: They could potentially protect some of the smaller native species, the small native rodents, the small carnivorous marsupials, the bandicoots, the rat kangaroos - these sorts of animals that have gone from many areas, we think the dingo would be actually able to benefit these species by suppressing the numbers of foxes and cats that are currently very detrimental to their populations. He suggested that farmers could keep "watch animals" such as donkeys, alpacas and llamas, which make a lot of noise when agitated, and which also attack predators, protecting livestock.

Speaking today (11.7.07) at the 2007 Biodiversity Extinction Crisis Conference held at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Dickman revealed data showing that in many areas - surrounding major Australian sheep farming regions - "where dingoes occur there are no foxes."

Dickman's research in a 325,000 km2 area of rangelands in New South Wales suggests that careful management and re-introduction of the dingo into what he referred to as a "conservation wasteland" could benefit 21 threatened species of mammals that still exist.

The Queensland sheep flock is at an all-time low, down to an estimated 4.5 million from 14 million in the early 1990s largely due to drought, wool prices and the wild dog problem (The worlds best bilby colony is on a sheep station with over 40 years committed control of dogs and foxes by baiting with 1080 and trapping Leong Lim pers comm)

Tim Flannery "national parks are marsupial ghost towns" "native wildlife was more abundant 4000 years ago before the dingo was introduced from Asia by fishermen." University of New England Armidale NSW surveys "Wildlife are more abundant south of the dingo fence" National Principles & Guidelines Rangeland Management (1999) "small to medium species of wildlife are disappearing off our rangelands." Most rangelands lie to the north of the dog fence.

James Woodford (2003) "The Dog Fence" Text publishing. ISBN 1 920885 26 9 Pg 172 "in a recent paper CSIRO scientist Alan Newsome argued that allowing the dingo back into parts of the western division of NSW could have dramatic impact on feral pests like pigs and goats. Woodford quoting Newsome "As custodians of the environment we must make a choice. What do we want? On the one hand the evidence is clear. The dingo does a lot of the pest control work for us -while we sleep - doing work we want done."

"They tried to tell us that we did not want to kill all the bait taking dogs and that by leaving some bait taking dogs in the area these would breed with the bait shy dogs and in the long run this would be best" (What? the parasite model?????) Take it easy everyone. We are going to all keep our sense of humor handy.

Together we will over come the lead pollution that affects our city cousins on some of these issues.

Very best wishes

Noeline.