Wild dogs do not recognise state borders
By Travis Tobin
[as published in The Stock Journal]
In March 2024, the Victorian Government allowed the dingo unprotection order in north-west Victoria to lapse, removing the routine lethal control arrangements that had helped protect livestock along the border.
At the time, Livestock SA warned that making such a significant change without proper consultation with the South Australian Government, industry or affected communities would increase predation risk on both sides of the border.
Two years on, those concerns are becoming reality.
Last week I attended the South Australian/Victorian Local Government CEO Cross Border Forum at Naracoorte Caves to again make the case for practical wild dog control to be restored in north-west Victoria.
This is not simply a Victorian conservation issue. It is a cross-border agricultural, animal welfare and regional resilience issue.
The 2024 decision changed control arrangements across an area adjoining about 250 kilometres of the South Australian border and removed the former management buffer around major areas of public land.
Victorian producers have reported the consequences. An ABC Rural report in June detailed hundreds of sheep and lamb losses around the Big Desert, with a local agricultural consultant estimating losses of about $3 million across five properties since March 2024.
The Victorian Government is now subsidising a 70-kilometre exclusion fence around part of the Big Desert. That may assist the properties behind it, but neighbouring producers are understandably concerned it will shift predation pressure rather than solve the broader problem.
The Victorian Farmers Federation has also called for the policy to be reviewed, practical landholder control rights restored and a three-kilometre management buffer reinstated. It says two breeding seasons have now passed, predation pressure is increasing and the permit system is failing to provide producers with a timely response.
Our state has every reason to be concerned.
South Australian producers are also feeling the pressure we identified in 2024. Signs of wild dogs in Ngarkat Conservation Park and on nearby properties since the Victorian policy change continue to increase and there have been at least three livestock attacks.
Wild dogs do not recognise state borders. Allowing populations and predation pressure to build in north-west Victoria increases the risk to producers in the Limestone Coast, Murraylands and Riverland and threatens the substantial investment South Australian producers, industry and government have made in coordinated baiting, trapping, surveillance and eradication inside the Dog Fence.
South Australia’s position is clear and balanced. We recognise the cultural significance of dingoes and that they can play an ecological role in some landscapes. But conservation objectives cannot come at the expense of livestock welfare or leave producers without practical tools to protect their animals.
The message I took to the cross-border forum was straightforward: Victoria should reverse the north-west policy, restore practical control arrangements and work with South Australia on transparent monitoring and data sharing, rapid reporting and coordinated action.
With Victorians going to the polls on 28 November, there is a clear opportunity for either a returning or incoming government to correct this policy.
Border communities should not be left carrying the cost of a policy made without them.