Activity of dingoes (Canis familiaris) and their use of anthropogenic resources in the Strzelecki Desert, South Australia

Abstract

Context

Managing human–wildlife conflict where anthropogenic resources are provided is difficult. Providing food, water and shelter can result in over-abundant dingo populations, especially in Australian desert mine sites where managing dingoes, wildlife and humans around waste-management facilities and camps is problematic.

Aims

To measure and characterise the spatial activities of a population of arid-zone dingoes in relation to resources provided by a Cooper Basin (Strzelecki Desert, South Australia mining operation). The results were used to facilitate effective dingo management.

Methods

Free-roaming dingoes were captured, their morphometrics and ectoparasite presence recorded, and they were fitted with Iridium (GPS) radio collars. These were used to collect high-fidelity data about individual dingo activity and movements in relation to mine-site infrastructure and the Cooper Basin ecosystem.

Key results

A high density of dingoes (181 trapped in 2 km² per 4 years) was associated with the mining operation. Home range/activity area sizes and usage of the anthropogenic landscape showed the following three categories of dingo: desert, peripatetic and tip dingoes. Dingoes reliant on food provisioning at the waste-management facility (WMF) displayed activity areas with a strong focus on the WMF (tip dingoes). Temporal activity patterns of another group of dingoes (peripatetic dingoes) were associated with regular waste-dumping times and normal nocturnal activity away from the WMF. Of the 27 dingoes collared, 30% (i.e. desert dingoes) were not dependent on the WMF, spending more time and a greater area of use in the desert dune system than in the mine-site area.

Conclusions

On the basis of the capture of 181 dingoes over 4 years and home-range analysis, it is likely that anthropogenic resource provisioning has caused an overabundance of dingoes in the Cooper Basin mine site. However, some of the dingo population remains reliant on native wildlife and resources in the surrounding desert. Managing food waste and excluding dingoes from food, water and shelter will result in a change in the prevalence of dingoes in the mine site, and subsequent reduction in the risk of disease transmission, native wildlife impacts, human conflicts and social pressures on dingoes, influencing them to revert to domestic-dog behaviours.

Implications

Waste-management facilities where food is dumped provide resources that lead to a change in wild-dingo behaviour, on the basis of their acceptance of human-provided resources, and high abundance. Managing access to anthropogenic resources will reduce the population as well as unwanted or aggressive encounters with humans. Dingoes reliant on food scraps will be encouraged to adjust their activity areas to desert habitat, thereby providing natural hunting opportunities and reduced contact rates with conspecifics, thus potentially reducing pathogen transmission.