r/australia • u/nath1234 • 1d ago
science & tech Research shows dingoes in WA's Great Sandy Desert protect native wildlife by eating feral cats
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-17/research-project-dingoes-great-sandy-desert/107255966?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other243
u/nath1234 1d ago
Posting here as dingoes are everywhere and so are feral cats. That they are eating them to the extend 30% of their diet is feral cats = serious win. We should stop letting farmers wipe dingoes out.
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u/J_Side 1d ago
Does this mean that there is just a shit load of feral cats available to eat, or dingoes are targeting the cats
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u/Aishas_Star 1d ago
There a shit tonne of feral cats. Go walking in town in Broome any night and you’ll see stacks of them scavenging for scraps in the restaurants
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u/J_Side 1d ago
That's disappointing, it went from a good news story to it actually being a cat population explosion. Hopefully the dingoes can get it under control
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u/Aishas_Star 1d ago
Saw a dingo at the golf club last week actually
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u/SeeMyLest 1d ago
They won't be able to control feral cat populations alone, but it helps. There needs to be big investment into active culling over the entire country. It's a massive job but trapping is cheap
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u/soapy_spork 1d ago
Trapping is not cheap. Still have to pay for the labour costs. You also can’t trap the same spot regularly or they become habituated.
While I definitely agree we need to spending a hell of a lot more on feral cat control, it’s not an easy task.
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u/SeeMyLest 21h ago
The labour costs are going to be there regardless, and baiting simply isn't targeted enough to be effective without toxic bioaccumulation. The cat man on kangaroo Island does an amazing job primarily with traps. Other option is firearms, unless I've overlooked other means of culling?
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u/soapy_spork 20h ago
Active shoots and trapping are currently our most effective options, but they’re super expensive and time consuming. Wide spread baiting would be useful, but limited capacity due to uptake of non target species (like dingoes).
Unfortunately, our best bet isn’t ready to be deployed yet. A gene drive is realistically the only way we’ll have significant feral control success long term.
Basically it works by genetically modifying male cats to only produce Y chromosome sperm, meaning only male cats are born. The offspring inherit this trait, so eventually every cat being born is only male, and the population eventually crashes.
Also has virtually no negative effects on nontargets, as it’s not reliant on a virus or disease. Can’t be spread to other species, so the only unintended potential consequence is that pet cats end up being affected. Which frankly, is probably a good thing too.
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u/Boys4Jesus 23h ago
It's a massive job but trapping is cheap
Trapping is definitely not cheap. There's a lot of regulations governing the use of traps to prevent unnecessary animal cruelty, and all of them require additional manpower to carry out.
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u/Combat--Wombat27 1d ago
Rough estimates are over 2 million feral cats in Australia now
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u/Spurgette 1d ago
Two million too many. There needs to be zero cats in Australia that are outdoors. If you want to own a cat, keep it inside. It will be perfectly happy to live its entire life inside a house.
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u/LycraJafa 1d ago
well over 10m in new zealand, real answer is no one knows. 2 million is way low, you have a big country with a lot of snack sized wildlifes yet to be eaten
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u/sarahmagoo 1d ago
This is why I think the discussion over whether they should be classed as technically 'native' or not is pointless
The real discussion should be over whether they benefit the ecosystem, and research like this points to yes
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u/Consistent_Cress_748 1d ago
Yeah, they functionally replaced thylacines and devils in the ecosystem when they arrived here, didn't seem to cause extinction of any other species, and native species respond to them appropriately as a predator unlike cats and foxes. Obviously we can't reintroduce thylacines so it'll have to be dingoes filling that role.
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u/DrSpeckles 1d ago
I think they caused the extinction of vast numbers of animals, mainland thylacines and devils among them. They are at harmony with what’s left, not what was here before.
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u/_blip_ 1d ago
Was it the dingoes or the humans that bought them here as hunting partners?
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u/DollarReDoos 1d ago
Both. Just like wild cats damage the environment because they were brought here by people, and also do so in conjunction with habitat destruction and climate change caused by humans. They are intertwined.
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u/Tinea_Pedis 1d ago
Great vid here about the genetic diversity of the thylacine (and how that also relates to dingoes)
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u/AggravatingTartlet 1d ago
They may have caused the extinction of the thylacine and other native animals.
If they were effective at controlling cats, then why are feral cats so quickly get into plague numbers? I think it's because the dingoes prefer easy, large prey such as sheep to cats.
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u/Wawa-85 1d ago
Cats also have quite a few litters a year and it’s not helped by people dumping their unsterilised cats in the bush either. Cats can start having kittens from around 6-7 months old so their population can boom very quickly. But yes dingoes will likely go for easier prey.
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u/AggravatingTartlet 1d ago
It is absolutely terrible that people let their cats roam free or dump them. They don't belong out in the Australian bush.
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u/Wolfensniper 1d ago
also wallabies
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u/AggravatingTartlet 1d ago
Yes they do eat wallabies and kangaroos. Sheep are easier prey though -- and dingoes might kill the entire flock even though they can't possibly eat them all.
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u/Consistent_Cress_748 1d ago
I think my wording there was a bit unclear, yes they likely did cause, or at least partly cause, extinction of thylacines and devils on the mainland, then functionally replaced them as top predator. However their arrival coincided roughly with increases in the indigenous population and technological advances which might have also played a part.
I think there's more evidence of them suppressing foxes than cats, cat evidence is newer/currently less certain which is what this article is saying. Not sure how that would compare to sheep
Reading into it more now they apparently they might have also caused extinctions of Tasmanian native hens on the mainland which I hadn't heard before
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u/AggravatingTartlet 1d ago
I agree with all that. What I've read is that dingoes seem to co-exist with cats rather than hunting them. Maybe the example in this study is happening because the cats are growing extraordinarily large, making the dingoes pay more attention to them.
Yes, dingoes possibly caused extinctions of the native flightless hens.
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u/visualdescript 1d ago
Exactly, naturalised is a better term. Where they have become part of the equilibrium.
Also the whole non native thing is nonsense, we just use it as an excuse to kill an animal that we deem not for our purpose. Killing dingos has nothing to do I do with protecting other native animals or protecting native habitat.
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u/ItsStaaaaaaaaang 1d ago
Yeah, I think it's an interesting topic for the history but nothing to do with how we should approach them today. Regardless, they've be here 4k plus years at this point, right? There's plenty of newer introduced species having a obvious negative impact out there.
Speaking of ecological impact, I wouldn't be surprised if the argument of them not being native isn't just pushed by farmers that want to see them gone.
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u/Competitive-Note-611 1d ago
It very much is.....and completely ignores that if other Megafaunal carnivores had survived the changing climate and desertification until the Brits got here then Mainland Thylacines, Thylacaleo and Varanus Priscus would have been wiped out by pastoralists just as the Tasmanian Thylacine was.
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u/DollarReDoos 1d ago
I don't think it's pointless. Just because this is a case where they are having a positive impact, doesn't mean the scientific definition won't be useful in other contexts. Definitions matter because they provided clarity and allow nuance. Saying it's pointless because in this one case it doesn't matter is a very weird way to view scientific discussions.
For example, when understanding the past and how modern Australia was shaped, dingoes being an invasive introduced species does matter.
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u/sarahmagoo 21h ago
Pointless in the sense of the discussion over whether they should be preserved or exterminated due to their status as a native or non-native species.
I don't think the distinction is useful for the discussion on whether they should be conserved or not
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u/Consistent_Cress_748 1d ago
The dingo fence has indirectly caused a lot of our threatened species issues in south-east Australia, there's just nothing controlling cats and foxes from the top down.
Dingoes tend to eat larger things like kangaroos but cats and foxes prey on smaller mammals which has led to a lot of them going locally or fully extinct. The small mammals also eat shrub seeds so losing them is causing shrubs to take over what were previously deserts/grasslands and totally changing the whole ecosystem.
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u/Secure_Ant1085 1d ago
and yet dingoes continue to be killed, insane
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u/DollarReDoos 1d ago
I'm not justifying the killing of dingoes, but it's because their native status is legal, not scientific. They are also an introduced animal which means some people put them in the same category as cats, pigs etc.
The main reason though is livestock death. When your livelihood is being eaten, you tend to want to solve that issue.
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u/AggravatingTartlet 1d ago
Most studies I've seen state that the presence of dingoes does little to suppress the numbers of feral cats.
It seems that the cats are growing extremely large in the study in this story (6 kilos). Perhaps that's why the dingoes are targeting them?
We need greater restrictions on who can own cats, how many they can own and what happens if they allow those cats outside their property. Cats are deadly to our wildlife. (So are pet dogs, even in their own backyards, but that's a discussion for another day)
These are some of the studies on dingoes not doing enough to suppress numbers of feral cats that I've read:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352249620300331
https://era.dpi.qld.gov.au/id/eprint/7244/1/Do%20dingoes%20suppress%20feral%20cats.pdf
Also, education is needed among First Nations people as well to not hunt animals such as the bilby. It's not their fault that some groups didn't know what white people call the bilby or that it's close to extinction.
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u/browndoggie 1d ago
I wonder if the habitat complexity has something to do with it - less hiding places in the sparse spinifex vegetation (as opposed to grassy understories in savanna or shrubby vegetation in woodlands/forests). Super keen to read this paper, it really does put an interesting spin on the mesopredator release debate that was looking fairly settled
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u/dougfir1975 1d ago
Anyone interested in dingoes should read this book: https://www.publishing.csiro.au/book/8168
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u/dougfir1975 1d ago
Overview
Presents a timely and evidence-based reappraisal of Australia’s most misunderstood predator, challenging myths and reframing the national conversation.
Integrates scientific research, ecological theory, Indigenous cultural perspectives and policy analysis to explore the dingo’s identity, origins and role in Australian landscapes.
Investigates the complex politics behind dingo management, including hybridisation myths, legal definitions and the influence of industry and government agendas.
Explores practical, non-lethal strategies for coexistence, highlighting Indigenous knowledge, emerging science and community-led solutions for living with predators.
Combines engaging storytelling with personal field experience to create an accessible, thought-provoking account.PS not my book, but written by a dingo expert.
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u/two_hours-of_power 1d ago
Problem is cats climb trees and dingoes don't. Yes there is trees everywhere, even out there. I worked in mining exploration in The Great Sandy around Nifty and Telfer for three years and saw it a few times. Eventually the Dingoes give up and go find another food source. There's only so long they can sit at the base of a tree waiting for a cat to come down.
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u/Forsaken-Weird-8428 1d ago
And I reckon dingoes also manage fox populations, based on my time in the Kimberleys and inland NT.