A PETITION lodged by Victoria Valley farmers, John and Rhonda Crawford has received more than 4000 signatures since this time last year opposing the proposed plan to reintroduce dingoes into the Grampians National Park.

The Crawford’s property backs on to the Grampians National Park, and they, along with many other local farmers and citizens, have significant concerns about the potential harm and impact the plan will have on the local sheep and wool industry.

Rock-Bank Merino and Poll Merino are well-known in the region and have farmed the land for five generations.

Ms Crawford said people from all around had signed the petition since they heard of the outrageous plan last year.

“We’ve got over 4000 signatures, we had an excellent lady from Willaura way, Caroline Gellert, she got 800 signatures, that was from Halls Gap, Willaura, Ararat, Stawell, Glenthompson, that side of the mountain,” she said.

“John and I did the southern end, we got 1200 signatures, we’ve left it going at the saleyards in Hamilton and at the Cavendish shop, there is also an online one at Change.org.”

The Greater Gariwerd Draft Landscape Management Plan was proposed in November last year and identified the reintroduction of native animals, including dingoes, eastern quolls, spot-tailed quolls and eastern-barred bandicoots, as a medium-term priority to conserve and enhance the natural and cultural values of the landscape.

The report stated the reintroduction of dingoes, which are considered extinct in Victoria, would help control pest species in the Grampians, but locals say attempts like this have created big problems in the past.

The report stated that “Dingoes have an important ecological role and may have the potential to support the management of overabundant macropods – kangaroos and wallabies – and to suppress cats and foxes”.  

It also said, “Dingoes are an important cultural species that have for thousands of years had a symbiotic relationship as semi-wild companions to Aboriginal people.”

“Dingoes were the top-order predators of the terrestrial ecosystem and also hunted in cooperation with Aboriginal people.”

Western Victoria Region MP, Bev McArthur threw her support behind the Crawford family and has fought hard across the last 12 months to try and stop dingoes from being part of the plan.

Ms McArthur slammed the proposal, describing it as a “stupid idea” which was completely “ridiculous” and lacked common sense, while disagreeing with the statement that dingoes were a part of the history in the Grampians region.

“I’ve been very concerned from when I first heard that there was some proposal to introduce dingoes into the Grampians … it’s completely problematic for anyone in the farming industry, especially the sheep farming industry to have dingoes right next door to them,” she said.

“Dingoes are predators, dingoes won’t choose between a lamb and a baby kangaroo, a quoll or some other small native animal … I can’t imagine that anybody could properly suggest that this is a feasible idea.

“This is the wool growing capital of the world and Australia has been driven on the back of the sheep, the Hamilton area is famous for sheep and wool growing and yet we’re going to potentially ruin it.

Ms McArthur suggested that those who had put in the proposal had no idea about what farming and rural areas were actually like and how much damage something like this could cause farmers and the industry.

She took aim at the Animal Justice Party and MP, Andy Meddick suggesting he didn’t care about farmers and the sheep industry at all.

“Those inside the tram tracks in Melbourne haven’t got a clue what’s going on outside the tram tracks, they think it’s a good idea probably to have no farms, you’ve got Andy Meddick who’s the upper house member for here, he actually thinks we shouldn’t be farming animals,” she said.

“He’d be more than happy for the sheep farming to end, the cattle farming to end, any farming activity relating to animals used for agriculture should be ended as far as the Animal Justice Party is concerned.”

“It’s people with no real idea of what happens out in rural Victoria who’ve promoted this idea probably sitting in a comfortable office in Fitzroy, and have thought this was a good idea, I don’t think it is; I’m on the side of the farmers.”

Mr Crawford said if the plan was to eventuate, it would decimate populations of native animals and completely wipe out the already slim koala population in the Grampians.

“That’s the worst thing about putting them in the Grampians here, the koalas have to swap trees every three days and get some new leaves, they (the dingoes) will sit at the bottom of the tree,” he said.

 “Bang, they’ve got them every time they move, they’re going to decimate that population, all the quolls that they’re going to put in, they’ll eat them out too.

“When you put any dogs in a bush situation, all the roos will be pushed out further to the farm country and the dingoes are naturally going to follow, and a dingo is going to eat sheep before he eats kangaroos.

“The sheep and genetics we produce here will be totally lost through one stupid idea dreamt up by the chardonnay set who never stepped foot outside Melbourne.”

Mr Crawford said he found the idea so “stupid” that last year he thought it was some sort of “April fool’s joke”.

He added that the dingoes the government were planning to put in the Grampians were hybrids and not pure-bred, meaning they could populate even quicker.

“These are not dingoes, these are wild dogs, they are hybrids and they (the government) admit that they are hybrids they are putting in, hybrids pup twice a year where a pure dingo only pups once a year, but these dogs that are going to come in here are hybrids and they are going to pup twice a year, they generally have about six but can have 10 on a good year if they’ve got a lot of feed which they will for a while, they can build numbers in a big hurry,” he said.

“They do not stay in the bush though, they follow the tracks and especially down here when we get burnt and dry years and they run out of tucker, there is 11 new campsites built on this walking track so that’s where they’re going to be drawn to, free tucker, people looking at them thinking they’re great, they don’t realise the problem they are going to create in here.

“They’ve already had the collars on them up in Queensland, one dingo will do 65km in a month, they don’t stay anywhere.”

The Crawford family said they were also worried about the tourism sector and the safety of those families visiting the Grampians to walk the new $32 million Peaks Trail.

“They are going to have to put up signs if they do it, beware of the dingoes because it’s about safety,” Ms Crawford said.

“I’m concerned about the safety of people that are going to go hiking and camping in the Grampians - would you want to take your kids there if a dingo could come out of the bush?

“It might take a few years to build up, but I don’t think it’s a good mix, it’s just a ridiculous idea and I hope that common sense prevails, and the dingo is taken out of the plan.”

Mr Crawford said it could be an expensive problem to have and thanked Ms McArthur for her support.

“If it wasn’t for Bev, we wouldn’t have had really anyone fighting for us … it’s going to affect our business and other farmers around,” he said.

You sign the online petition if you search Say "No" to the Plan to Reintroduce Dingoes to the Grampians National Park on change.org.