Victorian Environment and Agriculture Ministers must shoulder their responsibilities on native species loss, including native apex predator protection

 The Association for Conservation of Australian Dingoes Inc. (AFCAD) today highlighted serious ongoing mismanagement of the Victorian Dingo population by the Victorian government.

Listed as a threatened native taxon in Victoria, the Dingo continues to be subject to unnecessary lethal control, including at the hands of recreational hunters and through the Victorian ‘wild dog’ bounty scheme.  In practice, recreational hunters are killing Dingoes with immunity on those areas of Crown Land where Dingoes are protected from government lethal control activities. 

Shamefully, the Victorian government has opportunistically continued the previous Coalition government’s so-called ‘wild dog’ bounty ($120 per pelt)- a product of Victorian government backroom deal making with Victorian Upper House members of the pro-hunting Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party.

The Victorian government’s adoption of the politically concocted policy distinction between dingoes from ‘wild dogs’ encourages some hunters to falsely believe that killing dingoes is a form of environmental conservation.

Although only pelts from dingoes (and so-called ‘wild dogs’) from designated areas of Crown Land are eligible for the bounty payment, AFCAD is aware of reports which suggest Dingoes are being killed in parts of the state where they are protected and the pelts fraudulently submitted for the bounty payment.

Concerningly, some recreational hunters boast on social media that, by killing dingoes, deer numbers are increased, thereby “improving future hunting opportunities”. This is despite surging deer numbers now being a serious threat to Victorian ecosystems.

The Victorian government’s false policy distinction between dingoes and ‘wild dogs’, and its continued tacit endorsement of the destruction of the Dingo for recreational enjoyment, as well as  for fraudulent financial gain under the so called ‘wild-dog’ bounty, is a serious failure of environmental policy integrity.

Hypocritically, this knowing and unnecessary destruction of a threatened native species is facilitated  while the Victorian government is conducting an inquiry into the causes of native species loss in Victoria, an absurdity that casts serious doubt on the government’s environmental credibility.

This failure of integrity must immediately be corrected by the Victorian Ministers for the Environment and Agriculture. No government which takes native species loss and environmental stewardship seriously can allow such blatant policy inconsistencies to continue.  

The so-called ‘wild dog’ bounty must be immediately discontinued and recreational hunting of dingoes banned.

Photo: Social Media

Contact: australiandingoesinc@gmail.com