Updated
Graziers should look for opportunities to co-exist with wild dogs and dingoes.
That is according to the latest research summary published by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) on dingoes in Australia.
Called The Dingo Debate: Origins, Behaviour and Conservation, the book collates the latest research on dingoes.
Editor, Dr Bradley Smith said there was no doubt dogs kill stock in some areas and needed to be controlled, but he said in other places it was possible for the two to live side by side.
"Dingos are a problem in certain pockets, so there might be a couple of farms in a particular area that are very hard hit and there is no doubt that dingoes or wild dogs are causing issues there, but overall there is actually areas where there is dingoes and wild dogs living alongside farms."
Along with looking at the history of the dingo, their role in the environment and their future, the book also looks at stopping dingoes attacking sheep.
"If we just see them as a pest that we need to get rid of, then that's not going to help people trying to co exist," Dr Smith said.
"When you cull the wrong individual or when you break up family groups for example, that's going to lead to other dingoes moving in that might be more inclined to kill sheep or livestock.
"Also the juveniles might may become the prominent animals in the area, and they're the ones that are inexperienced and don't really know how to hunt as well as older adults, they're more likely to prey on sheep."
West Australian Pastoralist and chair of the Meekatharra Rangelands Biosecurity Association, Ashley Dowden, said dingoes or wild dogs and sheep were just not compatible.
"As for coexistence, anyone who runs small stock cannot tolerate any dogs," he said.
"It's all well and good while there is other food around for the dingoes or for the dogs and they're eating kangaroos and emus, but climate and seasonal conditions change, and when there's no food they convert to eating stock.
"Really we can't tolerate any dogs in the environment."
Topics: pests, pest-management, sheep-production, goat-production, geraldton-6530
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