Best-practice dingo management: six lessons from K’gari (Fraser Island)

Abstract

Canids across the world are involved in negative interactions between humans and their interests, with numerous examples of conflict management. K’gari (Fraser Island) and its dingo population are well known for the human-dingo conflict in the tourism and residential scenes. In this article, the successful management of such interactions is described through six key lessons learnt from over 20 years of adaptive management and its evolution into the current Fraser Island Dingo Conservation and Risk Management Strategy. These are (1) focus on people first, (2) understand local dingo ecology, (3) identify the pathway to intervention, (4) target dingo impacts, and prioritise behaviours and individuals, (5) work to a strategy (adaptive management), and (6) collaborate and engage with external stakeholders. This best-practice approach may be useful to managers of other populations of canids.