USC295_0021

DINGOES ON FRASER ISLAND
A comment by Rollo Petrie

Up to 1920's to my knowledge there were very many dingoes on theIsland.
Large packs would serenade when winter started prior to their breeding season.
No matter where one happened to be at night there would be always a corroboree
of the dingoes. Last year's pups' voices were distinguishable among the older
talent.

When riding along the ocean beach as we frequently did travelling from
Eurong to Bowarrady or to Indian Head it was commonplace to have ten or more
dingoes following. Fresh ones joined and others dropped out as they reached
their territory boundaries. (Dingoes travel great distances when necessary.
In the west I have known them to travel 40 miles to and from water).

On the Island there was no worry about water, but in those days food was
not plentiful. It would not be pleniful now if there was an equivalent number
of dogs on Fraser Island as there was in the early 1900's. The few dingoes now
on the Island could live comfortably on scraps and garbage scavenged from campers
and fishermen but in the early days they would have to work hard to survive.

I have seen bullocks (working) bogged in the peat swamps while trying to
reach feed. They would sink in the mud until it was impossible for them to move.
The dingoes would start eating them from the rear. I have seen a beast with its
tail and rump eaten out and along its back, flesh removed. The beast remained
alive. Dingoes caught the odd wallaby. Although there were not many wallabies
there were plenty of bandicoots.

On the mainland, where there were plenty of pademelon wallabies, kangaroo
rats, echidnas, goannas and snakes, I have known dingoes to kill bandicoots and
leave them lie. Domestic dogs will rarely eat bandicoot but they are very fond
of possum or any of the other game. Bandicoots were fairly plentiful in the
1915 to '20's in the Woogoolbver area. Bandicoot used to be reckoned as a
choice dish by a lot of bush people years ago, who dubbed the saying, "Bandicoot
pie Number One KAI."

A considerable source of food for dingoes on Fraser Island was Wongs (Eugorie).
This was readily apparent by observing the dingoes' dung. The wongs were chewed
up shell and all. The shell fragments in quantity passed on through the bowel in
some cases with the shell almost completely intact.

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