By Claire Ottaviano and Holly Thompson
Two dingoes, brought to a remote town in the state’s Mid West to educate the community and tourists on the essential role of apex predators in the ecosystem and regenerative farming, have been shot.
Now their owners are protesting against the local shire’s bounty system that could have led to their deaths.
Dingoes Eulalia and Steve were shot and killed in September.Credit: Frances Pollock
But the shire president has said he doesn’t believe anyone from the area would have been responsible and that the bounty system was not to blame.
Steven and Eulalia were first brought to Wooleen Station, in the Murchison Shire, when they were still pups in March 2024 – transported by car 4500 kilometres from Queensland.
The pair were loved by cattle farmer David Pollock, his wife Frances and dingo researcher Zali Jestrimski.
Jestrimski gave talks to visitors about the role dingoes played at Wooleen Station in landscape management, dingo types (alpine, tropical and desert) and the physical differences between dingoes and dogs.
Tourists (adults only) would wear neutral clothing and stay quiet and seated within an enclosure, with the dingo pair choosing whether to come, go or interact during the talks.
But on Tuesday, Jestrimski took to social media to tell the community the pair had been shot on September 24.
Through tears, she explained they had found the pair – which were microchipped and registered with the Shire – on the side of the road.
“For the first time ever Steve and Eulalia never came home. In the morning … there was no howling. We found they had both been shot on the side of the road. Their bodies were taken away, the shooter took them,” she said.
“It is so sad and devastating when any wild dingo is killed on Wooleen and this loss is a whole new level of devastation.
“Steve and Eulalia ... had all the luxuries of captivity, being fed and being loved by all of us. They also got to roam free, and I wouldn’t take that back. There is some level of comfort knowing they had such an amazing life.”
In the caption of the video Jestrimski wrote that for 10 years, there had been an active bounty system for the killing of dingoes in the Murchison Shire, and called on the Shire to end it.
Frances Pollock has started a petition on change.org also calling for an end to the Shire’s dingo bounty.
Speaking with this masthead, Pollock said the deaths were not just a personal loss, but a loss to the greater education on the narrative around dingoes.
“From what happened to the Chamberlains, to how they are portrayed on Fraser Island, and the agricultural industry branding them as wild dogs that need to be persecuted – there’s so many misconceptions around dingoes,” she said.
“All we are here to do, is to not only highlight the importance of having them in the landscape, but make people realise they’re not something to be feared.
“We don’t need to fear them, we just need to understand how to live with them and to respect they have a place here too.”
Before bringing Eulalia and Steve onto the property, David and Frances had been co-existing with wild dingoes without lethal controls in place for more than 15 years.
“We’ve proven that we can have livestock and actively have a wild dingo population while also increasing the biodiversity on the ground,” Frances said.
“We really strongly believe in what we’re doing, we’re watching it work.
“We want to ramp this education piece up higher because there’s a real story in this about how we can find balance for humans and dingoes to live a more harmonious life.”
Murchison Shire president Rossco Foulkes-Taylor said residents were given $100 per dingo, but they needed approval from the property owners first.
He said no one had tried to claim any bounty for Eulalia and Steve.
“My heart goes out to them, it is always difficult to lose an animal you love,” Foulkes-Taylor said.
“But seeing them go straight to social media to call for a change to the bounty laws was disappointing. They have never come to council, never discussed it with me and everyone living here has my number, they know my door is always open.”
Foulkes-Taylor said he believed Wooleen Station “over-romanticised” the discussion around dingoes, which are a declared pest.
“They are ruthless apex predators, and all the power to them, it’s in their nature, but it doesn’t gel with keeping our agricultural businesses running,” he said.
He said the shire received between two and five dingoes through the bounty program every month.
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