DINGOES AREN’T “WILD DOGS”

DNA analysis finds little interbreeding with domestic canines. A new study has found that most Australian dingoes have pure dingo ancestry, certifying their importance as native apex predators rather than pests.

The research, published in the journal Australian

Mammalogy, found virtually no feral dogs across the continent and very little evidence of interbreeding between dingoes

(Canis lupus dingo) and domestic dogs (Canis familiaris).

“The results challenge the widespread use of the term ‘wild dog’,” says lead author Kylie Cairns from the University of New South Wales.

“It is important that governments, wildlife managers and agriculture industry groups use the name dingo to describe these wild canines because this is what they are.

“The finding that there are very few feral dogs in the wild suggests there is something ecologically and biologically different between dogs and dingoes and that really an animal must be mostly dingo to survive in the wild.”