Dingoes are kin not pests: Time for a scientific rethink

The heavy cost of a dangerous label

In my years as a GP, I have seen many patients harmed by treatments that were based on outdated or incorrect assumptions. When we apply the wrong diagnosis, the result is never healing. It is the same with how we manage our environment. Today, I stood in the House to speak on a motion concerning our native dingo, an apex predator that has shaped the Australian landscape for thousands of years. Currently, our state relies on two contradictory legal frameworks: one that protects the dingo as native wildlife, and another that classifies it as a pest. This is not just a semantic slip. This classification is a license for cruelty.

We are talking about the widespread use of 1080 poison and strychnine traps. Let us be clear about what this means on the ground. These are not humane tools. They are indiscriminate weapons. When these baits are dropped, they do not check for a pedigree. They kill our native wildlife and, heart-breakingly, they kill the family dogs of Western Australians who are simply out enjoying a walk in the bush. This is a public safety issue as much as it is an animal welfare tragedy.

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The myth of the wild dog

The status quo is built on a myth: the idea that our bush is overrun by feral domestic dogs. Modern genetic science has dismantled that fantasy. Most canids in the wild are dingoes. Yet, the government continues to rely on a broad, catch-all term of wild dog to justify aggressive eradication programs. When we frame a native apex predator as a generic pest, its ecological significance vanishes from the public conscience. We have forgotten that ecosystems without their apex predators are unstable. When dingo family structures are shattered by lethal control, we do not solve conflict; we often exacerbate it and trigger ecological collapse.

Listening to the guardians of the land

Perhaps the most compelling argument that we heard today came from the perspective of First Nations knowledge. As Aunty Carol so poignantly reminded us: dingo law is ecological law. For many traditional owners, the dingo is kin. Ignoring this is to ignore 60,000 years of successful land management. We continue to spend millions on lethal controls that clearly fail to solve the core issues for our producers, while actively ignoring proven, non-lethal, place-based management strategies. It is time to stop viewing our environment as a project to be beaten into submission. A true, forward-thinking approach understands that when we destroy our native predators, we are pulling the structural supports out from under the roof of our own house. You can read the full Parliamentary debate here to understand the full scope of our arguments. If you share this vision for a more intelligent, evidence-based approach to our state, please consider joining us at Legalise Cannabis WA as we work to bring sanity and compassion back to our policy-making.