Mail Day

Having lived in the bush Berenice was familiar with mail deliveries being infrequent. Even when Bargo finally got daily mail the excitement of receiving mail at home or in the Society’s PO Box never left her. In 1991 she received a letter in the PO Box from the Society’s Patron, Neville Bonner, enclosing the following poem by Mr. N. A. "Cecil" Fisher.

She eagerly opened the letter then, standing in the street, she started to read the poem, totally unaware of what was going on around her. Sobbing, she rushed back to her car, where she could read the whole poem in solitude. It is a very beautiful and thought-provoking piece of poetry that will bring many tears to many eyes.

DING0

Working in the channel country, in the outback

Riding along a well used cattle track,

When in the corner of my eye, I did see,

A dingo bitch lying under a gum-tree.

She looked so worn and ragged and beat,

I left her a big piece of fresh meat,

On the rise, as I rode my chestnut horse up,

I saw the sign left behind by a dingo pup.

I fed this bitch and pups for a couple of weeks,

Alongside the banks of the channel creeks,

The bitch now with the puppies play around,

Left their tracks all over the black soil ground.

One day a dogger to the station, doing his rounds,

Said "For dingoes, I get paid a couple of pounds,

Won't take me long to find the pups and mother dingo,

When my job is finished from this station, I'll go."

Next day, from mustering I rode on back,

To the station on this well used cattle track,

There, lay the dead dingo bitch on the ground,

With dead pups all scattered around.

I heard a whimper that made me look up,

There on the bank stood a little dingo pup,

I reared this pup on milk and tucker of sort,

He looked a champion, I called him (Ding),·"dingo" for short.

Ding was about eight months old, when I went to town,

I headed to town to let myself down.

After the holidays, another job I had to seek,

This time the job was mustering sheep.

Ding didn't take long to understand how to work· sheep,

He was now a working dog earning his keep.

Tirelessly we'd work the sheep all day,

Ding and I never had much time to play.

The boss of the station said "He looks like a Dingo to me,"

I said "No boss, just a mongrel crossed with Kelpie."

We worked on this station until it could be seen,

Ding at working sheep had turned into a champion.

We would muster the sheep from the paddock all day,

At night while the sheep in the yards would stay.

After a feed I would put Ding on the chain,

Seemed to be looking for something he couldn't explain.

On the chain I'd watch him as around he'd prowl,

Then one night we heard a strange dingo howl,

Ding got excited, his body a quiver,

Just watching him, made me give a little shiver.

I walked up to Ding and took off the chain,

I knew that he wanted to join his pack again,

Ding's going took a part of me,

Out in the great channel country.

N. A. “CECIL” FISHER.

The Truth About Dingoes 11: Dingoes the essential Australian natives

Feral Cats
If you follow the environment news, you will most certainly see a lot about feral cats in the last few years and the horrendous toll they have had on wildlife since European arrival.

In one way this is a good thing because finally Australia is waking up to the fact that the beloved house moggies and their descendants have buggered our biodiversity. As a result, we have the highest extinction rate of any country. 

However, the newfound enthusiasm for killing anything feline is being used as a distraction from bigger environmental issues and to camouflage the complete incompetence of governments and their all-out war on the environment.

Headlines like Australia aims to end extinction of native wildlife by 2020 and goals of ending the loss of mammal species by 2020 are blatant wool-pulling-over-the-eyes public.

Yes, cats are bad for Australia, but we will never eradicate them. Moreover, we will never stop extinctions with our track record, just slow them down.

After years of building fences and poisoning everything we can, do people honestly believe that we're suddenly going to end the problem of cat predation?

If you read the posts on www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=aussiecanisdingoday

you'll see that by far and away our best chances for reducing cat population is to use our natural systems to their advantage - Let Dingoes do the work. Targeting certain populations of cats with culling will never, ever result in long term density suppression unless we couple such approaches with full scale ecosystem management.

We already have the knowledge and technology, so for biodiversity’s sake, let's use them.

We now have our very own threatened species commissioner who is trying his best but...

Neither of our environmental minister’s approaches mention anything about dingoes, ever, nor do they challenge their government's renewed love for habitat destruction and deforestation.

Cat's kill, but habitat destruction and continued bush clearing will have far more lasting and substantive effects on biodiversity than cats ever will.

Addressing all causes of biodiversity loss simultaneously is an absolute necessity.

Our environmental ministers need to get their heads out of the sand and join forces with our ecologists and use Dingoes to design a system that actually works and addresses the extinction crisis. Their approach so far will not work - not the use of more poisons.

Information reproduced with permission from http://jennyleeparker3.wixsite.com/aussie-canis-dingo

The Disastrous Effects of the Loss of Pack Leader

Berenice with Flowers, Peter Pan and Napoleon

In 1987 Berenice wrote about the impact of the loss of two senior male Dingoes over three years. The first was Napoleon and then, in 1987, Peter Pan.

****

Napoleon was a born leader, and during his life time undisputed leader. Under the

protection of his keen vigilance, our Dingoes were confident; when he accepted a

person, they accepted; when he accepted a frightening situation, they could adjust.

After Napoleon's sudden death, the responsibility of the group suddenly fell

on Peter Pan. He had always been more an 'uncle' figure, never an alpha, and in

desperation he turned to me for support, his eyes appealing to me to solve the

dreadful predicament that had befallen the group.

Between Peter, and senior female Dora, our little pack survived but, sadly, individuals were becoming more and more cautious through lack of a strong leader. Within a short time of Peter's death trust has further diminished, and the confidence of even the most outgoing seriously undermined.

The demise of our 'pack' following the loss of their leader, closely follows

the patterns recorded in the wild on wolves. The trauma caused by the death of an

alpha member has been known to throw the pack into such turmoil that it has never

recovered.

Despite domesticity and the fact that our Dingoes are regularly taken out walking and

handled by members, we are seeing a similar tragedy unfolding here, and we

only hope that in understanding the situation, we can now take· steps to support our

friends through this traumatic period.