Mr Star said a paper titled ‘Domestic Dog Introgression in Australian Dingoes: Environmental Drivers and Evolutionary Consequences’ published in the Molecular Ecology journal in March, as well as research from Adelaide University’s Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, showed ‘substantial levels of domestic dog ancestry within south-eastern Australian dingo populations’.
Mr Star said the presence of, on average, about 20 per cent domestic dog DNA within Victorian dingo populations should prompt authorities to reconsider protecting the animals.
“The science underpinning current government policy has shifted. When populations contain significant levels of historic domestic dog hybridisation, the government must seriously reconsider whether these animals should continue to receive the same threatened-species protections,” he said.
But Adelaide University’s Yassine Souilmi, who contributed to the research cited by Mr Star, rejected increased lethal control for dingoes as an appropriate solution.
He said further reducing dingo numbers would exacerbate a lack of genetic diversity within the Big Desert population.
“The more the management leans on removing protections and more lethal culling strategies, the more we actually make the genetic component of interbreeding that’s coming from domestic dogs higher,” he said.
“If you reduce the number of the wild dingo population that will have more dingo ancestry, you’re actually increasing the European dog ancestry in that group on average.
“Then you’re using that same measure to justify reducing numbers of dingoes even further, and you end up with this downward spiral.”
Dr Souilmi said he did not believe the presence of some domestic dog ancestry invalidated dingoes’ status as a threatened species.
“Our findings are that the Mallee population has more dingo ancestry than reported in the past, but a little bit less than was reported more recently,” he said.
“Overall from a genetics perspective the question is, is a dingo in the wild living a dingo lifestyle less of a dingo at 80 per cent dingo ancestry?
“It’s similar if you think about it from a human perspective. Someone might be, say, British, and they have 20 per cent French ancestry. Does that make them 20 per cent less British? It’s about where and how you live, and for an animal it’s about the functional role you fulfil in the environment.”
Work together
Dr Souilmi said he empathised with farmers affected by dingo attacks, and said the best solution was for researchers and farmers to work together.
“I understand that sheep farmers are concerned for their livelihoods and are probably not getting enough support from the government to offset the financial losses,” he said.
“It’s a fairly traumatic thing to come back and find your sheep dead, whether that’s by dingoes or foxes or disease or anything else.
“I think we’re caught a little bit in Australia in this situation where it’s essentially all-out war between livestock farmers and conservationists who want to preserve dingoes.
“I think the right answer is probably somewhere in the middle. We probably need to explore better ways of keeping dingoes away from sheep and vice-versa, whether that’s through better fencing or something else – cleverer people than me might have better ideas than I do.”
Rainbow-based dingo researcher Ellisha Martion, founder of Big Desert Dingo Research, said research showed relatively little dingo-dog interbreeding in recent years, with most domestic dog DNA introduced to dingo populations decades ago.
“Domestic dog ancestry in dingoes is largely historical, not evidence of recent or ongoing hybridisation,” she said.
“Much of the admixture is estimated to date back to the mid-20th century. In other words, the dog ancestry being discussed is not from someone’s pet dog roaming around last week. It reflects historic population disruption, landscape-scale lethal control, and human-modified environments.
“A dingo population carrying historic dog ancestry from 10 or more generations ago does not cease to be a dingo population. It does not lose its ecological role, cultural significance, or conservation value.”
Dr Souilmi concurred that most domestic dog DNA was introduced to dingo populations more than 60 years ago.
“The most recent interbreeding of the dingoes we worked with in the study anywhere on the continent was about 15 years ago,” he said.
“But most of it – there was a peak when we graphed it – was around the 1950s and 1960s. We don’t know for sure, but the speculation is it was around the time farming intensified in that area post-Second World War.
“That’s when soldiers came back and they were given land and started shifting to farming-based activity. There were likely a lot of dogs running around without being desexed.”
The entire June 24, 2026 edition of The Weekly Advertiser is available online. READ IT HERE!
The entire June 24, 2026 edition of AgLife is available online. READ IT HERE!
