New Study Reveals Australian Dingoes Carry Domestic Dog Genetics

A new study into dingo DNA has found Australian dingoes do typically carry at least a small amount of domestic dog genetics.

The study by Adelaide University's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) concluded that modern dingoes are just over 88 per cent pure.

Among the 300 animals tested, an average of almost 12 per cent of the dingos' DNA came from domestic dogs.

The genetic composition of dingoes has long been a matter for debate, dividing scientists, conservation groups, First Nations groups and farmers.

Previous research into the genetic make-up of modern dingoes has delivered mixed results.

A University of Western Australia survey in 2015 revealed extensive hybridisation between dingoes and domestic dogs.

In 2021, the dingo identity debate was rekindled when research from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) found 64 per cent of wild canids tested were pure dingoes.

Two years later, a UNSW study of more than 300 animals also found most dingoes in Australia were purebred.

The new Adelaide University study used DNA that pre-dates European settlement, to determine the genetic make-up of the same animals tested in 2023.

A true baseline

Dr Yassine Souilmi, group leader of genomics at ACAD said the use of ancient DNA gave the new study a true baseline.

"There's always been a question about whether those dingoes that have assumed to be pure are actually pure," he said.

The study identified eight distinct groups of dingoes across the country, and found big differences in genetic purity between the groups.

It found some groups in Western Australia and on Fraser Island contained less than 3 per cent dog ancestry, while in Victoria that figure was up to 28 per cent.

Dr Souilmi said it was not his place to adjudicate what genetic cut-off should be used to deem whether a dingo is considered purebred.

"That becomes a matter of policy and opinion," he said.

Previous study not 'debunked'

UNSW conservation geneticist, Dr Kylie Cairns co-authored the 2023 research that concluded most dingoes tested were purebred.

She said the new study did not debunk her findings, but "added context about the challenges dingoes have faced from hybridisation".

"We're talking about different time frames and scales, and it's not unexpected that as more refined analytical methods come online that things will start shifting," she said.

Dr Cairns said the new study found that hybridisation peaked in the 1950s and 1960s, and the levels of dog ancestry detected in living dingoes now did not represent ongoing interbreeding.

"When you're talking about historical gene flow 40, 60, 100 years ago, there's no way to work our way back to that point," she said.

Dr Cairns said it was hard to use genetic purity to define animals as dingoes.

"It's not a case of throwing out the dingoes we have, but more seeking to conserve them."

Dingo management

The approach to how dingoes are treated under law differs from state to state, and even within states.

In north-west Victoria for example, lethal control of dingoes was outlawed two years ago, and a similar debate is playing out right now in Western Australia.

Protection of dingoes has been welcomed by Indigenous groups and advocates for the environment, but it has been condemned by pest managers and the livestock industry.

The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences estimates wild dogs or dingoes cost Australia's agricultural sector up to $302 million per year, primarily due to stock losses.

Greg Mifsud is the national wild dog management coordinator, with the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions.

He welcomed the findings of the new study, but said they did not come as a surprise.

He hoped policy makers would take the latest study into account, but said regardless of genetic composition of dingoes, livestock need protection from predation.

"Ultimately from a management perspective and through the National Wild Dog Action Plan, we'll manage the impacts of dogs — whether they're domestic, crossbreds or dingoes — where they cause impacts on livestock or environmental assets or public safety," he said.

Federation of Victorian Traditional Owner Corporations chief executive Kaley Nicholson welcomed any research into dingoes and called for more input from First Nations people into the management of the species.

"Traditional owners help keep the land healthy and in balance, but are often locked out by bureaucracy," she said.

"We're concerned to see governments across Australia ignoring the science and sidelining the role of traditional owners, who have kept country healthy and in balance for tens of thousands of years.

"Here in Victoria, we want to see policy change that restores traditional knowledge, centres cultural practice, and reinstates traditional owners as partners in decision-making for culturally significant species."