State News - August 2007

FARMERS have vowed to strongly oppose a recommendation to list the dingo as a threatened species in Victoria.

The State Government's scientific advisory committee will today make a final recommendation to Environment Minister Gavin Jennings to list the species under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act.

The Victorian Farmers Federation said the move made a mockery of wild dog control programs and conflicted with the Catchment and Land Protection Act, which lists dingoes as an established pest.

"They have decimated sheep-grazing country on the public-private land interface in east Gippsland by preying on livestock, costing the industry millions of dollars," VFF president Simon Ramsay said. "If this was to proceed, it would be almost impossible to manage wild dogs and unworkable to have two conflicting acts that see them as protected and an established pest."

There are no estimates of the number of dingoes in the state. They are found in north-east Victoria and Gippsland.

The Department of Sustainability and Environment's biodiversity and ecosystems executive director, Ian Miles, said the clear majority of 36 submissions to the scientific advisory committee supported the recommendation.

But Mr Miles said even if the recommendation were approved, it might not stop farmers trapping and poisoning wild dogs.

The VFF disputes that the dingo is native to Victoria and argues many in the wild are not pure-bred.

The DSE said dingoes helped protect native animals by preying on introduced predators such as foxes.