Wild dog control extended to 2028: But $120 bounty to end

Wild dogs will continue to be baited, trapped and shot across eastern Victoria until 2028, but the $120 bounty ends next month.

The Victorian Government has extended wild dog control in northeast Victoria and Gippsland until January 1, 2028.

It means Victoria’s 20-odd doggers will be able to continue baiting, trapping and shooting wild dogs on crown land within 3kms of private property boundaries across the state’s east.

Agriculture Minister Ros Spence said “renewing the unprotection order gives stability and certainty to livestock producers in the north east and eastern Victoria, enabling them to continue to protect their livestock from dingo predation”.

However dingoes will remain protected on private and public land in Victoria’s north west and the state’s $120 wild dog bounty will cease on October 24.

Both Ms Spence and Environment Minister Steve Dimopoulos also committed $2 million to support north west farmers adopt non-lethal dingo management strategies as well as dog monitoring.

Mr Dimopoulos said: “We are striking the right balance between protecting our vulnerable dingo populations while giving farmers the ability to protect their livestock, and we will regularly engage to ensure settings continue to achieve this balance.”

The remaking of the new dingo unprotection order follows a review of dingo conservation and management with feedback from traditional owners, farmers and landholders alongside scientific research.

But the decision leaves Lawloit farmer Alan Bennett with few options, having suffered more than $15,000 in stock losses since the government declared dingoes protected across the state’s northwest in March.

Mr Bennett said he would have to spend more than $200,000 installing exclusion fencing to protect his stock and was struggling to obtain an authority to control wildlife permit to shoot wild dogs that attack his sheep.

“We’re the ones that carry the consequences,” he said. “We have a duty of care to our livestock, we spend all our lives looking after sheep.

“If the state government were really fair dinkum, they would fence off the Big Desert.”

Meanwhile Australian Dingo Foundation director Melinda Browning said dingoes should be protected on public land and farmers compensated for stock losses.

“We would like to see all the millions spent on aerial baiting, bounties, wild dog controllers, redirected into actually supporting livestock farmers in putting in place some really effective nonlethal strategies,” she said.

Ms Browning lives with two dingoes under a state licence. She said dingoes helped manage Australia’s ecosystems and promote biodiversity.

Victorian National Parks Association parks and nature campaigner Jordan Crook agredd there needed to be funding for research on wild dog whereabouts and using guardian animals on-farm, and for additional fencing.

He said farmers should be compensated, but there must be proof of dingo-caused mortality.

“We need to join up the agriculture, scientific and Indigenous knowledge and ensure a good future for the dingo,” he said.