Defend the Wild

Directions Website Contact the organization

Defend the Wild Working to safeguard Australia’s unique apex predators and their habitats.
🐕🐊🦈🦅

What a day of sharing, learning and caring for dingoes on Bindal Country! ❤️🐾Our Townsville North Queensland Indigenous ...
13/10/2026

What a day of sharing, learning and caring for dingoes on Bindal Country! ❤️🐾

Our Townsville North Queensland Indigenous Ranger Dingo Workshop brought together Elders, Traditional Custodians, Indigenous Rangers, local government and advocacy groups for respectful conversations about dingoes, their cultural and ecological importance, and how we can work together towards non-lethal alternatives.

A heartfelt thank you to Bindal Elder Aunty Jenny Wyles for welcoming us to Country and staying to participate in the day.

To Aunty Vicki Saylor—words cannot express the love and thoughtfulness you put into caring for us through your catering. Your mouth-watering food kept everyone well fed and nourished, and your compassion and care for mob shone through. The word is out, Aunty—your food was top level! ❤️

A special thank you to our Girringun Rangers for helping with setup, pack-down and supporting Aunty Vicki with the catering. She truly appreciated your help and shared these beautiful words:

“I must say, your rangers are some of the loveliest young people I have worked with and met, you are such wonderful role models.”

Thank you to our guest speakers, both in person and online, for your brilliant presentations and generosity in sharing your knowledge and experience: Associate Professor Neil Jordan, Dr Ben Pitcher, Dr Kylie Cairns, Linda Harper, Wayne Grant, Sarah Fulton, Wanika Close, Shantaishe Congoo, Chris Muriata, Whitney Rassip, Phil Rist, Dr Linda van Bommel, Alix Livingstone and Damon Sydes.

As National First Nations Dingo Coordinator, I also extend my sincere thanks to our amazing sponsors and supporters for making this day possible: Girringun Aboriginal Corporation, Girringun Ranger Program, Girringun IPA Program, NQ Dry Tropics, Terrain NRM, Defend the Wild, Dingo Culture and the University of NSW.

To everyone who attended, thank you for listening, sharing and helping us explore a way forward together, with Traditional Custodians and Indigenous Rangers at the decision-making table. Please accept my apologies if I have missed anyone—every contribution was appreciated.

Next stop is Cairns on Friday 23 October! We look forward to another fantastic workshop bringing everyone together. 🐾

Sonya Grant
National First Nations Dingo Coordinator

12/10/2026

Apex predators keep nature in balance by regulating prey populations, reducing introduced species and ensuring equilibrium.

Their future depends on our actions.

Apex predators keep nature in balance by regulating prey populations, reducing introduced species and ensuring equilibri...
11/10/2026

Apex predators keep nature in balance by regulating prey populations, reducing introduced species and ensuring equilibrium.

Their future depends on our actions.

Can you help us find this gorgeous girl a home? We’re calling out to our amazing community as this sweet girl has lost h...
11/10/2026

Can you help us find this gorgeous girl a home? We’re calling out to our amazing community as this sweet girl has lost her human and her long term canine companion. 😭

Could you open your heart and home to give her a safe place to land?

This gorgeous 7-year-old female dingo has the sweetest, most affectionate personality and deserves a wonderful home.

She absolutely loves people. She’ll follow you from room to room, curl up on your lap or simply rest her head on you for a cuddle. She’s incredibly gentle, friendly, and loves being part of the family.

She’s toilet trained and walks beautifully on a leash. She’s a really lovely, easygoing companion who just wants to be close to her humans.

As a dingo, she does have natural instincts, so she needs a home without cats or other small animals. She will need suitable fences to ensure she cannot escape too. She may be suitable with a male dog after a careful introduction.

Above all, she is looking for a safe, loving home where she’ll get the affection and companionship she deserves.

She’s a very special girl with so much love to give. ❤️

Please reach out to us if you think you could offer her a wonderful home, or share this post to help us find the right family for her.

08/10/2026

Apex predators are the solution to a healthy, thriving ecosystem. It’s time we recoginse their vital role in the environment and learn to coexist.

07/10/2026

We are proud to have been working alongside Yugumbeh man Uncle Lionel Currie over the past two years to secure greater protections for dingoes in New South Wales.

Uncle Lionel and his family have deep cultural connections to the dingo, which is a significant feature of their Dreaming.

Uncle Lionel also worked for New South Wales Parks and Wildlife for many years, including in dingo control. This ultimately contributed to his decision to step away, as his cultural values conflicted with Western frameworks for dingo management.

We still need your voice to ensure strong recommendations come from the inquiry into dingo management in national parks.

Please write to your local NSW state member and let them know how important this issue is. Urge them to support the following inquiry recommendations:

An end to dingo killing in national parks.

Support for landholders adjacent to national parks to successfully adopt non-lethal livestock protection strategies.

Cultural Custodians at the forefront of dingo management — including resourcing for dingo monitoring in national parks and genuine decision-making powers over dingo management.

The submissions are closed. The hearings have concluded. Now, we wait for the final report from the Animal Welfare Commi...
07/10/2026

The submissions are closed. The hearings have concluded. Now, we wait for the final report from the Animal Welfare Committee - a report that will make recommendations to the NSW Government about the future of dingo management.

We think this is an important moment to reflect on why this inquiry matters.

We are urging the Committee to recommend:

An end to dingo killing in national parks.

Support for landholders adjacent to national parks to successfully adopt non-lethal livestock protection strategies.

Cultural Custodians at the forefront of dingo management — including proper resourcing for dingo monitoring in national parks and genuine decision-making powers over how dingoes are managed.
You can help.

Please reach out to your local NSW MP and let them know that this issue matters to you - and that these are the recommendations you want to see made.

Our dingoes deserve a future based on coexistence, evidence and respect.

We want to say a very special thank you to two incredible people who went above and beyond to support our work - Karl an...
07/10/2026

We want to say a very special thank you to two incredible people who went above and beyond to support our work - Karl and Dan from Yulli's Brewery . ❤️

As a not-for-profit, we rely so much on the generosity of people who believe in what we’re trying to achieve, and this is one of those moments we really want to acknowledge.

We recently wrapped our screening tour of Moort Calling: Ding Back to Country and Wooleen: Utilising Dingoes as a Management Tool - two short films exploring the ecological importance of dingoes and the deep cultural relationships between dingoes and First Nations people.

While organising our Melbourne screening, we reached out to Karl and Dan. They generously offered their restaurant space for a Sydney screening, and we also asked whether they might be able to help with food and drinks for our Melbourne event, as our Melbourne venue didn’t provide them.

They went above and beyond. They travelled down to Melbourne themselves and took care of the food and drinks for the event.

They gave their time, energy and resources to help us share these important stories and conversations about dingoes, and we are so incredibly grateful.

It means a lot to have people willing to get behind our work in such a tangible and generous way.

Thank you, Karl and Dan, and the entire Yulli’s team, for being such wonderful humans and for standing with us for dingoes.

Pictured is rescued dingoes River and Nelly with Zeph 🐕❤️.

06/10/2026

During the inquiry into dingo management in national parks, the idea of killing dingoes in the name of protecting threatened species was raised.

But our friends at Minyumai Land Holding Aboriginal Corp. have been collecting data that tells a very different story.

Across the 2,000-hectare Indigenous Protected Area, 29 threatened species have been recorded — yet in three years of dingo s**t monitoring, not a single one has been found in a dingo s**t.

Instead, dingoes are primarily eating Swamp Wallaby, helping maintain grazing pressure. They’ve also found introduced pigs in dingo s**ts, showing that dingoes can assist with introduced animal management.

That’s why the Minyumai Rangers recognise the dingo as part of their pest animal management plans.

We also heard from the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service that dingoes have been killed in the name of shorebird protection, despite no evidence that dingoes were actually predating on those species. Under current frameworks, simply being listed as a threat and being present in an area can be enough to trigger lethal control.

Something is fundamentally wrong when an apex predator can be killed in the name of threatened species protection, even where evidence shows it may be helping protect those species.

We’re calling for the final report of the inquiry to support recommendations including:

1. An end to dingo killing in national parks.
2. Support for landholders adjacent to national parks to successfully adopt non-lethal livestock protection strategies.
3. Cultural Custodians at the forefront of dingo management — including resourcing for dingo monitoring in national parks and genuine decision-making powers over dingo management.

📣 Please contact your local NSW member and ask them to support these recommendations.

Address

South Melbourne, VIC

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Defend the Wild posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to Defend the Wild:

Shortcuts

Share

Category