AUSTRALIA'S WILD DOG.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 376, 8 July 1911, Page 5

AUSTRALIA'S WILD DOG.

A writer in the "Melbourne Argus" tells an astonishing story of the extent of the damage that ia being done in Borne parts of Australia by the dingo. the indigenous dog of the country, There are portions of the Murrumbidgee country in Victoria, he says, where the dingo is a very serious pest to stock owners. Unlike the fox and certain other animals, which persistently enter settled areas, relying on their craft to baffle pursuit by human enemies, the dingo is essentially of the wild, a shy but ferocious creature which retreats before the advance of settlement and keeps to the rough country which is extremely difficult of access. Those suffer from the depredations of the dingo are people living on the extreme fringe of settlement, in regions where mountain and valley are heavily clothed with rock, scrub and timber. From their safe retreats the dogs raid the stock runs with facility. There is an association for the suppression of dingos which, traps and poisons large numbers of the brutes, and there is urgent need of this activty. In the summer of 1907-8 one firm of runholders at Goobragandra lost 1000 out of a flock of 8000 sheep. For about ten years a small holder in thee same locality was obliged to yard the whole of his stock every night in order to protect them from the attacks of dingos, but the good work of the association ha 3 relieved him of his trouble. On the Upper Murray, where dingos now are not very numerous, stockowners at one time were compelled to erect netting fences eight or nine feet high, with a wing sloping outwards from the top, in order to protect their stud sheep from night raids. A few dingos will do almost incredible damage among sheep They seem to vie with each other in the revel of slaughter. The dingo does not bite as a domestic dog bitea; its teeth are arranged for '"chopping," and it simply snaps great pieces of flesh out of its victims. Probably as settlement is extended the dingo will be driven gradually into the remotest fastnesses of the mountains, and before many years are over will be exterminated.