This article is more than 10 months old

This article is more than 10 months old

Almost all of the so-called wild dogs in New South Wales that are killed to protect livestock are actually dingoes or “dingo-dominant hybrids”, according to new research.

Researchers at the University of New South Wales said their DNA sampling project showed between 9% and 23% of the “wild dogs” in the state had only dingo ancestry, challenging a notion that most dingo populations had died out.

Less than 1% of the DNA samples taken from dogs killed in management practices, mostly to protect livestock, had no dingo ancestry at all.

Queensland shark attack follows a familiar pattern: first horror, then a media feeding frenzy Read more

Lead author of the study Dr Kylie Cairns, of the University of New South Wales and a scientific advisor to the Australian Dingo Foundation, said there was a belief that NSW no longer had “real dingo” populations. “We find that’s not the case.”

In the study, published in the journal Conservation Genetics, Cairns and colleagues analysed samples from 783 dogs caught on public lands between 1996 and 2012.

NSW classifies wild dogs as a pest animal and most of the controls focus on protecting livestock using poisons. Dogs are also trapped and shot. Guard animals are also used.

Laws in NSW compel landholders to control “wild dogs” and “to take measures to prevent, minimise or eliminate the risk as far as is reasonably practicable”.

Dingoes are Australia’s only native canid and have been in the country for about 5,000 years.

Prof Mike Letnic, a co-author of the study, said dingoes were subject to a “terrible dilemma”, saying: “Like the kangaroo, they can be pests – but that doesn’t mean we should wipe them out.

“With the kangaroo, there is a balance between how we control and try to conserve them. We’re worried that with the dingo there’s not a great deal of balance – the emphasis is largely on exterminating them.

“There are still quite a few pure dingoes out there, and almost no dogs. We need to take efforts to look after the remaining populations. They are valuable.”

The researchers identified three hotspots in Port Macquarie, Myall Lakes and the Washpool National Park, all in north-east NSW, where there were more pure dingos than expected.

Brad Nesbitt, an adjunct researcher at the University of New England, who also worked on the study, said the focus on wild dogs had been to protect livestock producers but there was no plan that looked to protect dingo populations.

Cairns said: “We need to consider our terminology because calling them wild dogs is misleading. We also need a better balance between conservation and protecting livestock.”

“Yes, they eat sheep and they have an impact on farmers,” she said, but helping farmers to explore other control methods like electric fencing, or protective livestock animals, could help preserve the dingo population while helping farmers.

She added: “When they talk about conservation, they say dingo. But when it’s management, they talk about wild dogs.”