A wild dog’s diet in peri-urban Australia – not what you expect!
By The Invasive Animals CRC
Queensland-based researchers, funded through the Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre, were interested in the diet of peri-urban wild dogs to assess whether rubbish (i.e. food scraps) might be favoured over native wildlife or small livestock.
A wild dog was snapped by this remote camera trap set up in a national park to monitor wildlife (image supplied).
Diet analysis from scats collected in peri-urban areas of south east Queensland indicated that peri-urban wild dogs do not appear to be reliant upon human-sourced foods, and limiting access to these foods is unlikely to influence wild dog populations.
However, the presence of iconic and threatened wildlife species (e.g. koalas) was recorded in these dietary studies and indicates strong potential for deleterious impacts in the peri-urban areas where many are already restricted to bushland fragments already ‘under siege’. This data gives further evidence towards the importance of managing wild dogs in peri-urban areas as well as rural and regional areas of Australia as well.
