DR JONICA NEWBY A couple of years ago, I was walking just near here in the Blue Mountains, when suddenly I stopped in outrage and I went: “who let a dog loose in the national park?” Then I had another look. It wasn’t a dog – it was a dingo. I had no idea there were dingoes round here! NARRATION Somehow, just a few kilometres from the crowded streets of Sydney, a secret society of dingoes has managed to remain hidden. But what’s now being revealed about their culture and intelligence will amaze you. Let’s go find them. Really, it’s a miracle there are any left. This area once literally hummed with dingoes. DR JONICA NEWBY The early settlers actually used to complain of their “infernal moaning”. NARRATION But as Australia’s sheep industry started round here, dingoes were soon public enemy number one. Landowners were penalised if they didn’t clear their land of dingoes. It wasn’t until the year 2000 that the dingo at last got to have its day – the law was amended to allow for their preservation. DR JONICA NEWBY This is one of Australia’s first ever dingo conservation areas and it stretches from here all the way up through the bottom of the blue mountains to just below Katoomba over there. NARRATION But nothing was known of these creatures. If protected, would they come out and eat sheep? And were they even real dingoes, or just a mob of Alsatians gone bush? The burden of tracking down answers fell to this young man – PhD candidate turned professional dingo spy, Brad Purcell. BRAD PURCELL Hi good to see you. Yeah this is the spot. One time we were here and a couple of kangaroos rocked up and they didn’t know the dingoes were there. But the kangaroo quickly got in the water because then the dingoes won’t try to attack it. DR JONICA NEWBY Why not? BRAD PURCELL Because the kangaroo has the upper hand because they can just drown the dingo. And you hear lots of stories about domestic dogs that drown in farm dams. DR JONICA NEWBY Oh really? So this is one of the things the young guys have to learn is to not follow the kangaroo into the dam. BRAD PURCELL Into the water yeah. DR JONICA NEWBY Too dangerous. NARRATION But Brad hasn’t had to rely for his surveillance on mere observation with his trusty mini camera. Starting as he did in 2004, he’s had an arsenal previous dingo researchers could only dream of: radio tracking, motion sensor cameras, and GPS fitted collars. BRAD PURCELL It's a big brother-esque kind of 'we know what you're doing and where you are'. NARRATION And what he’s discovered out here in the shadow of the blue mountains is nothing less than an undercover dingo academy. From birth to young adulthood, he watched as the juveniles were taken through careful stages – learning first to hunt brush tail possums – then swamp wallabies or the odd wombat. Finally, they’re ready for the dangerous group undertaking of hunting kangaroo. BRAD PURCELL It's like school, you know in year one you learn the alphabet and in year two you might learn a bit more mathematics until suddenly you can do a PhD. DR JONICA NEWBY Or hunt kangaroos. BRAD PURCELL Or hunt kangaroos, there you go. NARRATION And the subtlety of the training has astonished even Brad. Back at camp – an old mining ghost town – he shows me something extraordinary. Captured by GPS – a never before recorded dingo behaviour. BRAD PURCELL It was almost like the adult dingo taught the juvenile dingo where the outer borders were. So on days 13 and 14 him and the juvenile have walked down to the southern portion of the border, then on day 35 they’ve gone out to their western border. Then on day 40 and 41 both of them packed up and as you can see they followed the whole outer territory of the border. It was about 28km worth of walking in 2 days. DR JONICA NEWBY I just find that amazing. It’s almost as if the father wakes up one day and goes – hey son, its time you learned adult dingo business – let’s walk the boundary. NARRATION And it clearly works. The nine dingo packs Brad studied never left their boundaries except to look for a mate- and certainly not to eat sheep. It all points to an extraordinarily complex ongoing culture – one we’ve disrupted in the past to our cost. BRAD PURCELL As soon as you disrupt the culture you create a very volatile state for the population and then you don't know what they'll do. NARRATION A study in Queensland found that when random dingo baiting occurred, paradoxically, livestock predation increased. BRAD PURCELL See, when the adults get killed, then the juveniles just may not be able to finish their training to learn how to hunt native prey. So they'll just sort of go looking for the easiest prey available. And if there's livestock enterprises right next to the park, then the prey will look pretty easy to catch. NARRATION Brad had the answer to the farmers question – if they leave the pack structure intact, sheep loss is less likely. But what about the other big question – were these real dingoes? Well, this pack looks the part – and this – but this one? BRAD PURCELL This red dingo genetic group and they’re all actually multicoloured tan dingoes. DR JONICA NEWBY Wow – they don’t look like dingoes at all. NARRATION Brad tried to resolve it through DNA - but the test were ambiguous – some suggested pure, some hybrid. And colour alone wasn’t a good enough guide. BRAD PURCELL Humans have this desire that the dingoes will be this sandy coloured animal from the desert. But there's plenty of stories where there were different coloured dingoes back when the settlers first arrived and variation in canid species can occur so quickly, even in six generations. NARRATION So the question became – even if the odd dog gene has got in there – does it matter? When the early settlers did their best to rid the country of dingoes, they were also eliminating Australia’s main top order predator. Top order predators are vital for ecosystem health – they control grazing animals and maintain species diversity BRAD PURCELL If the dingoes weren't here it's likely that we would have more foxes and cats, and we'd probably have less small marsupials because they'll eat the bandicoots and the bilbies and all the possums that are actually now endangered. NARRATION It seems these secret dingoes are secret conservationists! And it’s the vital importance of this role that has forced Brad to completely rethink his opinion of what it is to be a dingo. BRAD PURCELL They definitely act like dingoes so I’d have no doubt to say they are dingoes. DR JONICA NEWBY Wow. This really challenges our whole perception of dingoes, doesn’t it. BRAD PURCELL It certainly does. These are dingoes. Dingoes of the Blue Mountains world heritage area. NARRATION And that’s where we leave the dingoes of the Blue Mountains, performing their clandestine conservation services, teaching their young traditional dingo ways. They may not look like your image of a typical dingo – but hey they’re doing the job.
Topics: Nature
Reporter: Dr Jonica Newby
Producer: Dr Jonica Newby
Researcher: Ruth Beran
Camera: Kevin May Geoff Lye
Sound: Steve Ravich Nick Wood
Editor: Andrew Hope
STORY CONTACTS
Brad Purcell School of Natural Sciences Building K8, Hawkesbury Campus University of Western Sydney Locked Bag 1797 Penrith South DC NSW 1797 Australia