THE DINGO

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 22 January 1925, Page 5

THE DINGO

GROWING MENACE

AUSTRALIA’S WOOL INDUSTRY.

WAR OF EXTERMINATION URGED

BY CABLE —PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT . (Received Jan. 22, 9.20 a.m.) SYDNEY, Jan. 22. The rapid increase, of the dingo pest ’in recent years in various parts of Australia where formerly it was scarce •has been causing grave, concern to sheep owners, who suffered severe ■losses.

Lance Lesque, a well-known zoologist, who has been investigating the subject for the past two years and has just returned from ap extended trip in West and South Australia, states that the pest is undoubtedly increasing rapidly throughout the continent. There were 'dingoes to-day where there were none twenty years ago, and their ravages are causing immense losses. Some stations had in a few years lost 10,000 sheep and lambs from their ravages, while the sheep tally in the country west of the River Darling, had dropped from -.15,000,000 to 4,500,000, largely from the same cause. Dingoes had not killed all that number, but because of the trouble they gave pastoralists had withdrawn from that country. The erection of dog-proof fencing was adding a heavy burden to the avool industry. The increase and spread of rabbits, which provided food for the •dingoes, Xvas one cause of the greater prevalence of the pest. Unless an organised Avar of extermination Avas quickly undertaken, the avool industry aatus bound to suffer much more s<’.-i Vy than at present.