Surely the NSW Gov has an interest in actually knowing the population size of an animal species like dingoes - especially goven the already huge amounts of $$$$ spent on “management”.
How is success shown if not measuring density / population size…
Or is # of baits laid really the success measure?
Best way to support those aims would be to share samples with conservation geneticists 😉 especially those with expertise studying dingoes (or other canids).
It’s well established that hundreds if not thousands of dingo samples have already been collected - and are held by NSW DPI.
We absolutely should be quantifying and managing the negative impacts of lethal control on dingo populations.We know dingoes are impacted by low genetic diversity, inbreeding and indiscriminate killing results in genetic bottlenecks.
We don’t even have an estimate of the number of dingoes in NSW.
Dingoes associated with Indigenous Australians do start to show up around 2,500 ybp (maybe older yet to be found/dated)- but burial was not always practiced nor did most dingoes live with humans.
I think the arrival time is around 10,000-8,000 years - after the Tasmanian land bridge flooded and before the Sahul (New Guinea-Australia) landbridge flooded. I agree much older than 10,000ybp is unlikely.
Also molecular divergence date may not reflect arrival.
The molecular divergence date of the dingo lineage is >10,000 years based on ancient DNA calibration (Bergstrom et al 2020). Lack of >3,500ybp fossils is not evidence. We know fossil recruitment is poor in tropical environs and depends on density of the animal population (plus many other factors).
Dingoes are on their own evolutionary path, and are not domestic dogs - 🐾🐾
Read more theconversation.com/dingoes-are-...
Research www.publish.csiro.au/AM/AM24052 published today in our journal #australianmammalogy led by
@drcairns.bsky.social
Interesting new paper on the complexities of assigning Canis species by @drcairns.bsky.social @euanritchie.bsky.social and others. Very reminiscent of the ongoing debacle in North America with the Eastern/red wolf complex.
Ok, here’s my starter pack! go.bsky.app/4ASwaLv
Non-exhaustive list!
Cartoon of Agata glued to a crocodile.
Please welcome @agatastaniewicz.bsky.social, the scientist who broke Twitter (when it was still Twitter) with the hashtag #FieldworkFail by telling the story of how she glued herself to a crocodile.
🐊 🌍
🧪 #academicsky
fieldworkfail.com/en/
Never gets old
🚨 #DiscoveryProjects #DP25 announcement:
❗️Outcomes announced publicly for Discovery Projects 2025❗️
See ARC's RMS for list ➡️ rms.arc.gov.au/RMS/Report/D...
/bot
Interesting - particularly in the context of the cultural value and importance of #dingoes to Indigenous Australians and the massive scale of government dingo culling programs in National Parks.
@euanritchie.bsky.social @howlingdingo.bsky.social
Mass bleaching of corals on the Great Barrier Reef in early 2024 was the most severe and most widespread yet recorded - surpassing 1998, 2002, 2016, 2017, 2020 & 2022.
The overall mortality rate this year will exceed the 30% loss in 2016. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Let’s start a thread of orgs you support, are important, but are not yet on Bluesky!
Reply with the org & their contact info. I’ll gladly contact them & ask them to make the switch!
Want to reach out to my fav?
Voyagers Wolf Project!
www.voyageurswolfproject.org/contact
www.startribune.com/a-clever-wol...
Researchers and farmers working together to find a solution to livestock predation that doesn’t involve killing wolves (as much).
Turns out barrier fences can and do work to deter wolves, and livestock guardians compliment this strategy.
Sunday chicken coop refresh - the ladies are happy! #chickenclub #chickens #heritagebreeds
Using #eDNA to learn about the diet of predators and thus predation risk using metabarcoding. Our #eDNA source was 💩 and our team includes Traditional Owners, local community members and Gov ecologists/officers. We managed to collect scat from #dingoes, #foxes, #feralcats, #goannas, #owls and more!
The video provided in Supplementary Information from the very interesting paper by Lai and co-authors in Ecology, showing potential pollination by Ethiopian wolves of Kniphofia foliosa! 🐺
Read it here: esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
@pollinet.bsky.social
DNA metabarcoding reveals unexpected diet breadth of the specialist large-headed resin bee (Heriades truncorum) in urbanised areas across Germany @royentsoc.bsky.social resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Bluesky is emerging as the new platform for science.
Indeed almost all people who used to be active on climate change on Twitter/X are now here.
To get more content: @katharinehayhoe.com has the complete overview and best starter packs, as usual 😀
mikeyoungacademy.dk/bluesky-is-e...
A small, round frog sits on wet ground with a puddle behind it. It's underside and limbs are pale, while its back is greenish-yellow with brown splotches. It has large, round eyes with enormous pupils, giving the sense there are very few thoughts inside its head.
A green and yellow splotched frog lies flattened in a patch of brown running water. It has very large, round eyes with enormous pupils.
We had our first decent dump of rain in a while at Mt Gibson last night, which means the frogs are back out and about in abundance.
At this time of year, the chorus seems to be dominated by the Shoemaker's Frog (Neobatrachus sutor; left) and the Wheatbelt Frog (N. kunapalari; right).
#WildOz
Unfortunately demonstrated in the way Australian Governments are failing to shift policy about #dingo conservation follow updated knowledge about their identity and limited evidence of contemporary dingo-dog hybridisation.
Sign by gate on dingo fence crossing from South Australia to NSW.
"Dingo tree" - dingo killed by control operation are hung here because reasons.
Multiple gov'ts and agencies call dingos wild dogs, apparently to increase the social acceptability of dingo control.
A bit late to the game, but I participated in this collaboration of over 100 Australian ecologists, led by the amazing @dadriscoll.bsky.social on Biodiversity impacts of the 2019–2020 Australian megafires that was recently published in @natureportfolio.bsky.social:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
🫨 uh oh.
Our new study out in @ScienceAdvances shows human presence in Tasmania at least 41,600 years ago, nearly 2000 years earlier than previously thought, and Aboriginal people burned and used wet forests.
Link: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Please add me!
So, hypothetically, if a threatened species’ population had declined by up to 70% in 15 years, with loss of genetic diversity too, but there was uncertainty about the data, would you halve decline estimate, landing on ‘vulnerable’ or would you assume estimate is reasonable and land on ‘endangered’?
