00:00I head out to meet up with Linda, the senior ranger for Queensland Parks and Wildlife here
00:06on Gari, to learn more about what goes into managing the stingo population.
00:16So what's he digging here?
00:17Fish frames.
00:18So people are told to dig their fish frames down at least 50 centimetres below the surface
00:22of the sand, and as long as he's smelt that, he's dug that up and he hasn't affiliated
00:26that with humans, then that's fine.
00:28It's so nice to see a wild animal like this that doesn't even care about us.
00:32No, he's very relaxed.
00:33This is a gazetted highway, 80 kilometres an hour, and there's cars on either side of
00:37him going backwards and forwards, so it's my preference that he probably doesn't do
00:41this in the middle of the highway.
00:43They're extremely opportunistic, anything, and they'll be hunting at dawn, dusk, they'll
00:47be walking the tide.
00:48You can follow those tracks for miles, watching them, what's on the tide, what's washed up,
00:52what is there for me to eat.
00:53During the day, they'll go for a snooze and sleep, it's hot, come back out again.
00:57They will eat anything that they can find.
01:01Most of them are inland, and the only ones that you see are those that have that familiarity
01:04or habituation, which is the basis for a lot of the interactions that do go on in that
01:09human-wildlife interface.
01:11How do you log and record that?
01:13I mean, is there a record of that or anything like that?
01:15Well, something like what we've just seen here is a dingo doing its own thing, so that's
01:19not an interaction, so it would be put down as an observation.
01:22What would turn this into an interaction?
01:24So you had some fishes there, and he's walked up and he's taken some bait or a fish out
01:28of their bucket because they haven't stored it properly, that would then become an interaction.
01:32Because he has approached humans to gain access to food, or he's stolen something, or he's
01:37nicked their tail, and then that's sort of a nuisance behaviour which then can lead into
01:41more threatening behaviour if we're not able to manage that, and sort of remind him that
01:46that's, you know, you're meant to be wild, you're not meant to be hanging out with humans,
01:50and then D interactions become threatening, and then E interactions are the ones where
01:54contact's made or nips or bites or that quite dangerous behaviour.
01:59They say that a dog's a man's best friend, and to the untrained eye, they look like a
02:03dog, they look like a domestic dog, and people don't seem to understand or appreciate the
02:09potential of that wild animal and what they're capable of doing.
02:13They are not a domestic animal, they are not a domestic dog.
02:18They are an amazing, wild apex predator in Australia.
02:23So this is where it becomes different.
02:24If he approaches us, it's now an interaction, and he's got a tag in his ear.
02:30That tag is telling me that he's male, but he is a habituated animal.
02:34There he is, right here, look at that.
02:36So is this an interaction now?
02:37Yep, this is an interaction.
02:39He has now approached us because he's curious, and then he's sat right down in front of us.
02:43It's not good, and that's not what a dingo should be doing.
02:47So the males are tagged in the left ear, females are tagged in the right ear, their
02:50particular colours, their particular shapes, so those tags are very important in making
02:55sure that you're identifying a correct individual, especially when it comes to those threatening
03:00or high-risk behaviours, because you don't want to misidentify an animal and end up having
03:05consequences for an animal that is not the right one.
03:10You know about half a million tourists visit Garry Island every year.
03:14The beaches on the eastern coast of the island have a lot of people visiting them, and if
03:19you're a dingo, and there's people there barbecuing, having picnics, fishing with open buckets
03:25of bait, it's a huge temptation.
03:27So the human-wildlife interface is especially exaggerated on the eastern side of the island.
03:36We have a huge range of educational material that's got to cater for a diverse range of
03:40people that visit.
03:41We work extremely hard with stakeholders to ensure that everybody is giving consistent
03:45messages about dingo safety and keeping yourself safe.
03:50Dingoes will be dingoes.
03:51Our main role is to manage the people around that.
03:54But in doing that, there are certain, there's that small percentage of the island, those
03:58areas where you get high-use visitations, that dingoes need to also be reminded that
04:04this is probably not the place for them while people are there.
04:07It's actually easier to manage the people around what dingoes do.
04:11Dingoes.
04:12Dingoes.
04:13Dingoes.
