Word: dingoes
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...possibility that horrifies Watson. People come from around the world to her Toolern Vale property an hour outside Melbourne, and pay to stay the night just to hear her 16 dingoes howl at dusk. During the day the lean, aloof animals, most of them the pale sand color of the desert dingo, lie in the sun in their high-fenced enclosure, snuffling and backing away when a stranger arrives. Having bred them for 20 years, Watson's home is full of photos and paintings of dingoes, but her argument for their protection is based less on sentiment than...
...Melbourne's Monash University aims to change that, in October announcing plans to store dingo samples in its gene bank alongside those from endangered species like the northern hairy-nosed wombat and the Sumatran tiger. Monash's Norwood Animal Conservation Group, which oversees the program, needs $A10,000 in start-up funding to gather reproductive and tissue samples from perhaps 100 wild and captive dingoes as "an insurance policy" against extinction, says project director Shae Cox. The funding offers aren't rolling in, but Cox senses public opinion is starting to shift in favor of the animals' long-term survival...
...ensure they're getting samples from pure dingoes, the Monash team will use a genetic test developed by University of New South Wales geneticist Alan Wilton. Following on from earlier skull morphology work by other researchers, Wilton's test has been ringing alarm bells about the extent of hybridization, confirming a collapse in pure dingo numbers throughout much of south-eastern Australia. And there's plenty more work to be done: one of the problems hindering efforts to manage dingoes is the lack of data on their numbers or the national spread of hybridization, particularly across vast stretches...
...Alice Springs office of the N.T.'s Parks & Wildlife Commission, Steve Eldridge has a small but growing collection of dna samples waiting to be sent to Wilton. They're to be the start of genetic sampling of dingoes in the Territory where they are protected, though government staff bait pastoral properties at the request of landholders. It's a common story: Eldridge says there aren't the funds or the staff to monitor changes in dingo populations other than as part of baiting programs on properties which are losing stock. "There are a number of buckets of money for pest...
...talk in coming weeks with W.A. officials about sampling there too, Wilton says it's hard to see how any dingo colonies can escape hybridization in the long term: "In remote areas Aboriginal communities have domestic dogs and landowners have working dogs and tourists have their pooch in the back of the car, so there's not really anywhere that's isolated." Once inter-breeding starts, "it's very difficult to wind back the clock - it's like a ball rolling down a hill." While remote areas could still harbor pure populations, Wilton believes "they won't stay pure unless...