Reintroducing the Dingo: Can Australia's Conservation Wastelands be Restored?

Dickman, Chris R.; Glen, Alistair S.; Letnic, Mike

doi:10.1002/9781444312034.ch11

Cited by 53 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…[13,32,34,95,96]), but our results demonstrate that such actions do not produce such outcomes. Fauna recovery programs should more carefully consider the factors limiting threatened prey populations of interest and the general indifference of predator and prey populations to contemporary dingo control practices before altering current predator control strategies.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 45%

Sympatric prey responses to lethal top-predator control: predator manipulation experiments

Allen

Allen²,

Engeman³

et al. 2014

Front Zool

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Introduction: Many prey species around the world are suffering declines due to a variety of interacting causes such as land use change, climate change, invasive species and novel disease. Recent studies on the ecological roles of top-predators have suggested that lethal top-predator control by humans (typically undertaken to protect livestock or managed game from predation) is an indirect additional cause of prey declines through trophic cascade effects. Such studies have prompted calls to prohibit lethal top-predator control with the expectation that doing so will result in widespread benefits for biodiversity at all trophic levels. However, applied experiments investigating in situ responses of prey populations to contemporary top-predator management practices are few and none have previously been conducted on the eclectic suite of native and exotic mammalian, reptilian, avian and amphibian predator and prey taxa we simultaneously assess. We conducted a series of landscape-scale, multi-year, manipulative experiments at nine sites spanning five ecosystem types across the Australian continental rangelands to investigate the responses of sympatric prey populations to contemporary poison-baiting programs intended to control top-predators (dingoes) for livestock protection.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 45%

Sympatric prey responses to lethal top-predator control: predator manipulation experiments

Allen

Allen²,

Engeman³

et al. 2014

Front Zool

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“…Understanding the roles of dingoes in highly altered ecosystems (i.e. sheep grazing lands and urban ecosystems) may actually be most important, because such systems are those expected to benefit most from positive dingo management [23,50].…”

Section: Knowledge Gaps In the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, dingoes clearly present direct risks to threatened fauna that must not be casually overlooked or assumed to be of lesser importance than their indirect benefits [16,17,22]. For example, by applying established predation risk assessment methods [50] developed for foxes and cats, [16] showed that up to 94% of extant threatened mammals, birds and reptiles in western New South Wales would be at risk of dingo predation (71% at high risk) should dingoes re-establish there (Table 2). By comparison, only 66% and 81% were predicted to be at risk of cat and fox predation [50].…”

Section: What Direct Risk Do Dingoes Pose To Faunal Biodiversity?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, by applying established predation risk assessment methods [50] developed for foxes and cats, [16] showed that up to 94% of extant threatened mammals, birds and reptiles in western New South Wales would be at risk of dingo predation (71% at high risk) should dingoes re-establish there (Table 2). By comparison, only 66% and 81% were predicted to be at risk of cat and fox predation [50]. Information on prey important to dingoes seems particularly useful for gauging the potential risks dingoes pose to threatened fauna [16].…”

Section: What Direct Risk Do Dingoes Pose To Faunal Biodiversity?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[31,49]) and even restore them to sheep and goat production regions (e.g. [23,50]), actions collectively referred to hereafter as 'positive dingo management'. Serious concerns about the validity and rigour of the science supporting positive dingo management have been raised (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Top-Predators as Biodiversity Regulators: Contemporary Issues Affecting Knowledge and Management of Dingoes in Australia

Allen¹,

Fleming²,

Hayward³

et al. 2012

Biodiversity Enrichment in a Diverse World

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Field assessment of the risk of feral cat baits to nontarget species in eastern Australia

Fancourt

Zirbel²,

Cremasco³

et al. 2021

Integr Envir Assess & Manag

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Feral cats (Felis catus) pose a significant threat to wildlife, agriculture, and human health through predation, disease transmission, and competition with native animals. Controlling feral cats and their impacts, however, is challenging. New and emerging 1080-based feral cat baits have shown promising results in western and central Australia; however, the safety of these new baits for nontarget species in eastern Australia, where many native animals are more sensitive to compound 1080 (sodium fluoroacetate) than their western conspecifics, has not been assessed. We investigated the uptake of 499 toxic Eradicat ® baits by nontarget animals across five different eastern Australian environs and the uptake of nontoxic Eradicat and Hisstory ® baits at an additional two sites. Using field-based observations of species eating or removing baits, we determined that 13 nontarget species (eight mammals, four birds, and one reptile) were at high risk of individual mortality, with individuals of 11 of those 13 species (seven mammals, four birds) observed consuming enough toxic Eradicat in a single visit to ingest a lethal dose of 1080. Feral cats (the target species) consumed only 3.1% of monitored baits, which was only 52% of the 31 baits they encountered. We recommend undertaking targeted population monitoring of species identified at high risk of individual mortality, to determine whether Eradicat baits present a population-level risk to these species. Our findings suggest that the small-sized Eradicat baits present a greater risk to nontarget species in eastern Australia than the larger traditional 1080-based meat baits used for the control of wild dogs and foxes. Our study highlights the importance of performing risk assessments for different bait types, even when the same toxin is used, and of performing site-specific nontarget risk assessments of new baits such as Eradicat to assist developing guidelines for their safe and effective use in different environs.

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Reintroducing the Dingo: Can Australia's Conservation Wastelands be Restored?

Cited by 53 publications

References 78 publications

Sympatric prey responses to lethal top-predator control: predator manipulation experiments

Sympatric prey responses to lethal top-predator control: predator manipulation experiments

Top-Predators as Biodiversity Regulators: Contemporary Issues Affecting Knowledge and Management of Dingoes in Australia

Field assessment of the risk of feral cat baits to nontarget species in eastern Australia

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