Քուինսլենդը դիտարկում է փոփոխություններ, որոնք կարող են տեսնել դինգոներ շների այգիներում

• By Rudi Maxwell

• Topic:Environment

8h ago8 hours agoThu 6 Nov 2025 at 11:09pm

In short:

Queensland is considering changes to biosecurity regulations that would remove barriers to keeping dingoes as pets.

Scientists, traditional owners and wildlife groups fear that classifying dingoes as dogs would be a failure to acknowledge the unique role the native apex predator plays in the Australian landscape.

What's next?

The Queensland Department of Primary Industries is considering the public response to the proposal before legislative changes come into effect in April 2026.

Dingoes could be seen frolicking with dachshunds and labradoodles in Queensland dog parks under regulation changes being considered by the state government.

Under the plan, the Queensland Department of Primary Industries would reclassify dingoes as Canis familiaris, or domestic dogs.

Changing this biosecurity classification would mean people could keep dingoes as pets, but scientists, traditional owners and wildlife organisations fear the plan could have negative outcomes for dingoes and people.

Changing classification

Dingoes are classified as an invasive species under the state's biosecurity regulations and are subject to the same restrictions as foxes and rabbits.

This means they cannot be distributed, sold, released into the environment, moved, fed or kept.

A Department of Primary Industries spokesperson said Queensland's biosecurity laws were being reviewed ahead of legislative amendments coming into effect in April 2026.

"Dingoes will continue to be protected in national parks and landholders will still be able to take action to protect their livestock from wild dog or dingo attacks under the general biosecurity obligation," the spokesperson said.

Alix Livingstone, from not-for-profit Defend the Wild, said the changes would bring serious ecological and cultural risks and animal welfare consequences.

"Dingoes are not dogs," she said in her submission to a Department of Primary Industries discussion paper.

"They are a genetically, evolutionarily, and behaviourally distinct species that play an irreplaceable ecological role as Australia's apex land predator."

Dingo genetics researcher Kylie Cairns said the classification of dingoes was inconsistent under law because dingoes were considered to be native wildlife in the Nature Conservation Act but an invasive pest under biosecurity legislation.

"It is a contradiction and it's something that a lot of states are grappling with, because a lot of the different state legislations consider animals to be native if they've been in Australia since significantly before European arrival," she said.

Dr Cairns pointed out that dingoes had been in Australia for thousands of years, while domestic dogs mainly arrived with white colonists.

"The way that the policy deals with that is just not workable at the moment because it makes no sense to have one being treated as native wildlife and at the same time be considered as another [domestic] dog … but that seems to be what the policy is trying to do," she said.

Should dingoes be kept as pets?

Dingo ownership is allowed in New South Wales and Western Australia, but both states have struggled with over-breeding, poor welfare and an increase in unwanted animals.

Ms Livingstone said Sydney Dingo Rescue, the nation's largest dingo rescue organisation, presently cared for approximately 100 dingoes, about 70 per cent of which were bred in captivity.

Dr Cairns said that if the Queensland government was going to allow people to keep dingoes it should consider a licensing framework similar to Victoria's.

"They're more wild so they don't do as well in home environments as domestic dogs," she said.

"They're much smarter, they're much better able to escape traditional domestic household home environments in terms of climbing up fences, and so they just don't generally fit into most domestic settings as easily."

Simon Stretton from Durong Dingo Sanctuary in South Burnett said understanding dingoes' needs and behaviour took years of commitment and patience.

"I just tell people, 'You can't have a dingo' — they're not a dog, not a pet," he said.

Is a dingo the same as a dog?

Australian wildlife academics published research in Australian Mammalogy in August arguing dingoes should be considered a distinct species from domestic dogs.

One of the study's authors, Deakin University wildlife ecology and conservation professor Euan Ritchie, said the taxonomy of dogs and dingoes was "quite messy".

"There's a lot of debate and controversy about whether dingoes should be considered a species in their own right, or at least a sub-species of the wolf, and some people have argued that they are essentially one and the same as dogs," he told the ABC.

But Dr Ritchie said appearance, morphology, behaviour and genetics highlighted key differences between dingoes and domestic dogs.

Dingo Culture founder Sonya Takau, a Jirrbal woman, said the proposal did not make sense and was disrespectful to Aboriginal people, who were not consulted about the idea and who had a cultural obligation to native animals.

"From my cultural perspective and growing up with my old people, my father and my family, the dingo is very culturally significant," she said.

"I just cannot fathom the idea of this beautiful, wild canid … a unique wild animal that is on its own evolutionarily distinct pathway, [not being classed as] separate from domestic dogs."