Dingos

This guy is one of the purest dingoes you'll see. When his ancestors arrived in Australia over 5,000 years ago, hitching a ride with Asian seafarers, they quickly had run of the land, since there were no natural predators for the dingos to compete with. Like many conquers, they also bred with whomever they wanted. Because of this, most dingos in Australia are actually interbred with dogs, just like coyotes in New England are interbred with with wolves and dogs.

However, the population of dingoes that swam over to Fraser Island was isolated from the start. Because of this, they are very closely related to the Asian Wolves that they descended from. The pure dingo population is part of the reason that Fraser Island is World Heritage Listed.*

Despite American folklore about dingoes snatching babies, there aren't many historical incidents of dingoes bothering people.* However, when more tourists began coming to Fraser Island in the 1990s, they began feeding the Dingos in order to get close to them for photo opportunities. Once the dingoes thought they were entitled to human food, they became aggressive with campers.*

To combat this, the Queensland Government implemented the Fraser Island Dingo Management Strategy. Now, it's against the law to feed or even interact with a dingoes, and huge fines apply. One woman was recently fined $40,000 for repeatedly feeding the dingoes**. With the plan, the government claims it has reduced the dingoes' dependence on humans, and returned them to a more natural lifestyle.***

We saw quite a few dingoes, and they were all around the camping areas. One even managed to sneak up to a trash bag sitting only a few feet from us. All the animals we saw mostly ignored people, and ran away as soon as we made noise. They're adorable (and skinny!), so I understand why someone would want to feed them, but the park rangers have proven that the ones that are fed are the ones that attack people in the future.  In that case, I'll take my dingo photo ops from afar, thank-you very much!

*fido.org.au

**http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/03/3056420.htm

***http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/parks/fraser/dingo-safe.html