Pastel on Pastelmat paper

Image size  41 X 34 cm

I have many personal thoughts on dingoes and my love of them is based largely upon my own experience with both wild and captive animals. I have always loved dogs and though the dingo is certainly not a dog, it is related to them. A species of canid which has evolved isolated on the Aussie continent for at least 10,000 years, the dingo shows a great many traits not found in wild dogs. I can talk for hours about them but the following taken straight from the Dingo Discovery Centre sums it up well......

‘The dingo (Canis dingo) is an iconic, Australian native wild canid, which is loved by a huge majority of the populace. A recent marked shift in the public and scientific communities’ attitude toward them being primarily due to their important ecological function as Australia’s largest terrestrial apex predator, where regulation and suppression of many species such as kangaroos, rabbits, foxes and cats, naturally promotes healthy ecosystem balance.

Unfortunately, the dingo has suffered the same fate as the grey wolf (Canis lupus) by coming into conflict with graziers, and becoming a convenient scapegoat for profit losses. It’s a cultural issue, where the fear of what may be possible is more real than what does, or is likely to occur.

On the contrary, many studies are finding a case for the re-introduction of the dingo into previously occupied habitat ranges, in order to return some balance to environmentally degraded areas, as a result of unregulated and out-dated farming practices. Each day, more credible evidence of this is made available in the face of what has largely been unsubstantiated conjecture by the rural lobby that has been exaggerated by the media.

Dingoes have faced ongoing cultural persecution via bounty hunts, trapping and 1080 baiting. Consequently, they are under severe threat of eradication, particularly along the south-eastern seaboard of Australia, where agricultural and urban developments dominate. Dingoes are currently considered threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)’.

This pastel portrait I have done is from a meeting with several of the dingoes at the Discovery Centre and I hope it conveys the remarkable intelligence and purity of spirit which I find in these gorgeous creatures.

To find out more go to website .. https://dingofoundation.org/