Battle against wild dogs (dingoes) how appalling?!

Arrogance/Pride/Ego.. its all the same. Anyone who posts on the internet has some level of it? In regards to the sake of it, no. I dont mind the Devils Advocate position, however, I dont believe there is any problem with culling animals in an efficient manner and to say all culling is wrong is plain fundamentalism.

In regards to "What If".. why dont you level that at your fellow contributors? If everyone here is directing this energy towards a problem, why not do something about it?

The what if scenario came out from my point about looking at ones own lifestyle. We all impact on the environment and quite a simplistic way to highlight we all do things that others find disagreeable.

Well, going by the condemnation of others on this forum... However, to just pass judgement on these cullings is, again, fundamentalist, and lacking any emapthy towards the farmers etc who have been labelled a variety of things. What happens if they inherited the property and thats how they support their family. I dont see you chiping into the discussion mentioning that or putting forward other options that are actually achievable.

So, sure, as you know, we can all change but we all have baggage to deal with.

In regards to the childish reprimand, again, level it at all indiscriminantly and there will be humble pie to share. It has nothing to do with age and more to do with calling out someone on something they attribute to others.. baiting is a great method of frustrating ignorance.

Simple. All types of fundamentalism are wrong and I would put a few green notes that most who have contributed to this topic dont understand any of the science that goes towards the proper and efficient management of animal populations. Instead, we get a section of society labelled and condemned and you must therefore believe, by allowing that, those type of people will really *sarcastic tone* want to come onboard and change their behaviours?

Well thanks for your approval of my intelligence and postings, you must have some activity upstairs too. Just go and put your insights into the real world and create the change. People who can laugh at themselves make much better leaders then punctuation nazis.

To return the critique, and barring the desexing and relocation criteria, those are pretty level headed ideas you put forward about culling (where do you relocate animals with territories of 100 or 1000s of kms? To capture the animal, think of the technology required to alert that the animal has been captured (more technology, less chance of capture) AND that someone is instantly able to drive out for animal welfare purposes (some of these properties are the size of european countries) to first desex it, then drive it to X.. Is this taxpayer funded? That would be an expensive set of nuts and wouldnt you be annoyed if the dog died of capture trauma just when you arrived! Oh wait, thats been tried plenty of times before..)

Oh..

Instigation is to incite and the instigation on this topic was well underway before Mitch or I posted, however, I will concede, we are definitely the biggest!

Noone disagrees.. except, humans are the weakest link and they sometimes forget/choose-not-to desex their animals, or lock their gate, or tie the dog up during a storm..

Even with the best intentions, you are still going to have accidental escapees..

I hate this word so much.

What a wanker

To think youre studying to be a primary school teacher and all that you can come up with is wanker.. Where are the fun police when you need them? Isnt this what you all call bullying?

For those who disbelieve what Mitch is saying and actually wish to find out about the issue (hmm.. hardly expect takers here) some links to visit: http://www.feral.org.au/pestsmart-toolkit/pest-species/dog/ and http://www.australianalps.environment.gov.au/publications/alps-program/wild-dogs.html.

Wild dogs arent dingoes.

You know, this line here said it all for me.

will keep this brief so as to not perpetuate this any longer than it needs to (although that point may have passed a few pages back )

Anything said against farmers on this forum isn't against them on an individual basis, but rather the farming industry (and in response to something else you said about creating change - yes, many of us do engage in a range of activities to reduce the demand for human consumption of animal products).  No one is under the illusion that cutting farming overnight is either achievable or fair to those who are dependent on the industry.  I do accept though that blindly focusing on the long-term issue of human exploitation of animals does nothing to alleviate the current issue being discussed and it'd be short-sighted to exclude the farming community from consideration based on the reality of the situation

I don't think it's any more fundamentalistic (not sure if that's a real word) to object to culling in this instance than it is to oppose deforestation in Tasmania or the the production of non-sustainable palm oil in Asia.  There is an unwarranted demand for a product which compromises the ecosystem.  

How about this:  Long term solution - remove the demand for farmed animal products.  Short term solution - have the supplier pay to protect the ecosystem (individual fencing of grazing property) and pass the cost back to the consumer (this also assists the long term solution).  Mitch was saying before the idea of fencing is ridiculous - fencing is being done under the Govt funding so unless Mitch (or yourself) are privvy to information on the effectiveness of t his approach that the authorities on this matter aren't, then it may be worth sharing with them.

whoops that incorrect use of "your" wasn't even intentional - must have gotten a bit over excited when capitalising the word


all very valid logistical concerns.  Also relocation often just moves the issue elsewhere rather than addresses it.  However the wild dogs don't seem to be the problem here - my stance against culling in this instance is that it appears as though the only real driver to do so is to protect livestock that merely exist to support a lifestyle that is directly opposed to mine (being the exploitation of animals for human pleasure).  The link you just posted re-affirms this:

"As top-order predators, wild dogs hunt native and feral animals. They help suppress other introduced predators, such as foxes, maintaining healthy ecosystems and biodiversity. However, wild dogs can cause losses of livestock on grazing lands and can also spread disease, such as hydatids (tapeworms)."

that said I'm also a realist and don't think that the interests of the farmers will not take precedence in this case.   granted, I don't have solutions here either and don't understand the details of the issue enough to speculate on what should be done.  I just think that more consideration needs to be given to conserving the (relatively) natural order rather than culling (relatively) native wild dogs purely for economic prosperity.

Okay, all I got from the pages and pages of arguments was that 'no one knows how to spell correctly' and 'let's just talk about it endlessly'.

There are a few ways for farmers to raise cattle without culling.
One is to factory farm cattle. Factory farming takes up less land and farmers are able to control the conditions better.
Another alternative is for farmers to go vegan and take up jobs in other industries (as if that's gonna happen).
A third option is that they stop culling and take a take a "circle of life" attitude where they dont see their animals and their land as property to be protected but as part of nature (as if that's gonna happen)

I dont see the point in telling farmers, who kill animals for a living, that they shouldn't kill other animals that threaten their livestock. Why shouldn't they? Because it isn't vegan?
It's akin to me telling people off for using mouse traps in their house, ignoring the fact that there's a dead animal on the table for dinner each night which they dont regard as vermin pests.

good point Aaron, never thought of it like that before

I agree with Sarah on the effectiveness of this discussion - I'm out

edit: and to think that just 3 days ago I posted this as one of my NY resolutions:  "I get caught up on things that I can't directly change and lose focus on the things that I can".  That hasn't gone so well!