North-west Victorian landowners fear stock losses from dingo attacks will escalate with lack of water on public land.

NORTH-WEST Victorian sheep producers are concerned a lack of water in the region’s public parks will again lead to further dingo attacks on sheep flocks in coming months.

The Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action has said providing supplementary water on public lands is among strategies to be employed in its new North West Vertebrate Pest Management Program.

However, landowners are concerned dingoes in north-west public parks will be forced to wander onto neighbouring sheep properties looking for water and also attack flocks before watering points are provided. DEECA has not indicated when watering points might be established in north-west park areas.

The Victorian Government last week said it was maintaining its Wild Dog Management program in north Victoria and Gippsland until 1 January 2028, permitting the control of dingoes on private land and along the boundaries of public land. However, lethal controls for wild dogs or dingoes in the north-west will not be permitted on private or public land in the north-west, with the Victorian Government claiming there is little evidence that dingoes are present there in large numbers.

DEECA said dingoes play an important role in the ecosystem and the latest Arthur Rylah Institute data shows the dingo population in the north-west is at risk of extinction, with as few as 40 dingoes left. While dingo numbers are much greater in other parts of the state, they remain a threatened species and are protected under the Wildlife Act, the department said.

North-west landowners are ‘political roadkill’

Mr Bennett said commonsense has prevailed with the decision to maintain wild dog control in eastern Victoria.

“I would hate to see those people thrown into the same situation we have been and they would be a potentially worse position because the nature of their terrain.

“That’s really good, but at the end of the day it makes us feel like we were the political solution to their court case with Animals Australia,”

Mr Bennett said Animals Australia dropped its Supreme Court case against the Victorian Government’s dingo control program in the same week the dingo unprotection order in the north-west was discontinued.

“We were just the political roadkill really.”

DEECA told Sheep Central a $2 million support package – on top of the $550,000 North West Vertebrate Pest Management Program announced in March — will fund trials, research and on-ground advice on non-lethal dingo management strategies that minimise the risk of livestock predation.

The support package will include camera monitoring, restricting access around water on private land and supplementary water on public land, investigating fencing strategies around paddocks vs properties and a livestock guardian animal pilot, the department said.

Dingo introductions in the north-west seem unlikely

It seems unlikely DEECA intends to introduce more dingoes into the supposedly inbred north-west dingo population, with the department stating it will partner with Traditional Owners to determine actions to support healthy country in line with self-determination principles. This does not include the reintroduction of dingoes, DEECA said.

DEECA said the support package will also include funding for the design of a statewide dingo monitoring program to gather more data and trends including on the causes of livestock predation to assist decision-making. However, the department said the design of the dingo monitoring approach is currently being considered and it would not state whether this would include a dingo collaring program suggested by the National Wild Dog Action Plan.

Government measures offer no relief in stock losses

Mr Bennett said despite the government announcing its new North West Vertebrate Pest Management Program with $2 million in funding, “the bottomline is nothing is going to change for us with the wild dogs; we are left high and dry.”

“So far since the 8^th of March when we had our first (dingo) attack, we’ve had five cameras set up on the perimeter of our property taking photos of wild dogs walking around on our place.

“That’s the sum total of the assistance given to use in the six months,” he said.

“Our stock losses would now be over 100 (sheep) and we are still continuing to have issues up there.”

Mr Bennett said his daughter recently found sheep had knocked a fence down and there was a ewe with a broken leg on their property adjacent to the Big Desert Wilderness Park.

“The dogs are still active up there, we are just trying to move the sheep away from wherever they want to work.

“We’ve had a very dry spring and we’ve got the same water issues that brought the dogs out of the park in the autumn, so in the summer there will be basically no surface water in the Big Desert park and the dogs will be out beside accessing water on private land,” he said.

“If they run into stock while they are out on private land they will kill and eat sheep – that won’t change.”

However, Mr Bennett said there could be problems with establishing watering points in the park that might attract other animals and damage the immediate area.

Mr Bennett said the lack of water for dingoes and wildlife in the park was the biggest issue for surrounding landowners, with emus also moving out onto private land.

“The dogs (that come out of the pack) have got no reason to go back in there, that’s the biggest issue.”

Dattuck district sheep producer Tim Ferguson said he is also concerned dingo attacks will escalate and he is considering totally destocking are being DEECA refused his applications for permits to control dogs.

“It’s either that or they are just going to beaten alive.

“We can’t do anything else, they won’t support us with fencing and they won’t less us destroy the dogs that are causing the problem, so what other option have we got?”

Mr Ferguson said DEECA staff had not given him a real reason why his permits to control wildlife (dingoes) were denied.

“They said we didn’t meet the criteria and we asked for the matrix that the criteria comes under and they haven’t got a matrix, sop therefore there is no criteria.”

Mr Ferguson said dog sightings and attacks with livestock have increased since March. He has lost about 70 sheep from dingo attacks this year, including 50 animals in one incident, with further losses due to stress.

DEECA cameras identify dogs on park/farm boundary

Mr Bennett said the DEECA cameras on his boundary fence had identified three different dogs adjacent to his property.

“It’s not just one problem; we’ve got a number of dogs in there.

“One of the DEECA staff saw a dog accessing water in a clay hole.”

He is waiting on a contractor to put up an exclusion fence around 2000 acre block with no stock on it.

“But that only pushes the problem somewhere else.”

He said a neighbour has seen dogs several times recently, indicating the dingoes were on the move.

“And they wouldn’t have seen a dog on their place for 20 years and they would be probably 10 kilometres from the southern edge of the Big Desert.

“Because they’ve got no impediments, they’ve got no reason not to, they can just go where they will like,” he said.

“They will just spread out further and further.”

Mr Bennett said he had not seen any substantial o-ground support for north-west livestock owners that would limit the stock losses from dingoes coming out of the Big Desert Wilderness Park.

“It’s not going to happen – what they are doing now is just window-dressing.

“It’s just so they can put out the press release that we are doing this to support the landowners – well it will make no difference to the dog attacks on our property,” he said.

“What part of this funding is going to stop a dog killing my sheep?”

Striking the balance – DEECA

A DEECA spokesperson said the department is “striking the right balance between protecting our vulnerable dingo populations while giving farmers the ability to protect their livestock, by remaking the dingo unprotection order in eastern and north eastern Victoria until 1 January 2028.”

’‘We are supporting farmers and Traditional Owners with an additional $2 million investment into non-lethal dingo controls and population research.”

DEECA said the Wild Dog Management Program is being maintained in the east of the state and renamed the Vertebrate Species Management Program. The focus will be expanded over the next four years to include vertebrate species such as deer, as well as vertebrate pests such as feral cats, pigs and foxes. The program will continue to provide valued support to farmers in the east, providing responsive and targeted dingo and wild dog control to mitigate the impacts on livestock using a range of non-lethal and lethal control measures, the department said. The wild dog component of the Victorian Fox and Wild Dog Bounty program is also ceasing.

DEECA has not said if the government considered fencing the park areas at taxpayers’ expense to keep dingoes in and limit the possibility of them being destroyed by surrounding landowners. The department also did not answer if has modelled what its north-west dingo policy will cost nearby flock owners in sheep losses and damage, or if the government has considered offering compensation for stock losses from dingoes in north-west Victoria.