Dingoes occupy a unique position in Australia as both wild predators and persecuted animals. Their welfare is shaped by lethal control programmes, baiting, and their complex ecological role.
Dingo welfare is compromised by lethal control programmes applied at landscape scale across much of Australia. The primary method — 1080 sodium fluoroacetate bait — causes a prolonged death through cardiac and central nervous system failure, with animals experiencing seizures, paralysis, and extreme distress over 1-3 hours. This is a severe welfare harm applied to millions of animals annually. The ecological evidence increasingly supports dingo preservation as a keystone predator — where dingoes are present, fox and feral cat populations are suppressed, benefiting the small native mammals those predators prey on. Coexistence approaches including livestock guardian animals, predator-proof fencing for vulnerable paddocks, and community-based livestock management can reduce livestock predation without the welfare costs of landscape-scale lethal control.