Scottie was a big healthy nine-year-old border collie, but when his loving owners left for work from their Kurrajong property on Wednesday, July 27, they had no idea it was the last time they’d see him alive.
When they got home that evening he wasn’t only dead, but stiff, with extensive head injuries. Blood was all over the grass near their back door.
What owner Melissa Page finds chilling is that he was in a fenced area next to the house where her four-year-old daughter plays – supposedly safely.
“The vet at Jonora shaved his head and took photos –she said she thought it was wild dogs that did it,” Ms Page said. “My daughter’s play area and cubby house is there. There’s a gate [with a bit off it] and a wire fence in one section, but we don’t really know how they got in.”
Melissa and her husband Simon rang Gary Ryke, who has trapped around 200 wild dogs which had terrorised Bilpin and Kurrajong properties over the last seven years.
“Gary looked around and he also believes they were wild dogs,” Ms Page said. “A month ago a sheep and its lamb went missing, and on the same day as Scottie died a chook went missing nearby.”
The family live on Comleroy Road near the junction with Blaxlands Ridge Road, and near a neighbour who a few months ago lost all his alpacas to wild dogs.
“My concern is that I have a four-year-old daughter who weighs 16kg – and Scottie weighed 29kg,” she said, indicating her daughter would have had even less of a chance against such an attack.
“I”ve just spent nearly $1000 on cameras to try and see what dogs are hanging around, and Gary set his traps on Saturday. Council also rang to offer traps and we said yes.
“I’m hardly sleeping – every noise I hear I wake up. I’m very anxious. I also have four horses. I don’t want anyone to go through what I’m going through.”
Dog trapper Gary Ryke said the wild dog problem was a real one.
“I’ve been in paddocks with 15 dead alpacas,” he said. “When I trap them I can tell if they’re wild or domestic. A lot of them are hybrids of dingoes.”
He traps them in rubber-jawed traps which don’t break their legs. If pets or working dogs get caught in them he is able to let them go. The wild ones he shoots.
To see what they’ve been preying on, he opens them up after he shoots them. “They eat wallaby, quoll, koala –I’ve found all of those in their stomachs.”
He said the anguish caused by the predations of wild dogs shouldn’t just be the problem of those who fall victim to them.
“We need everyone to work together on the wild dog problem,” he said. People need to tell me straight away if they’ve seen one, as these animals have a range of up to about 18km a day.
“Forty years ago we used to have dog drives to get the numbers down. Out here, they come out of the Wollemi and Putty Road. The State Mine fire three years ago drove a lot of them in this direction. National Parks doesn’t want to acknowledge they’re out there.”
He said one farm near Putty Road lost 30 sheep to wild dogs. “They start in the foothills near Kurrajong and live all the way through the mountains. I’ve seen one stalking my son in his sandpit.”
He said he’s trapped and destroyed dogs all over the Sydney basin but “90 per cent of them were in the Hawkesbury”. He said he’s got the numbers down sufficiently at Bilpin now and estimates there would only be 10-12 in that area.
The Gazette asked Council what residents should do if they fear wild dogs on their property. Director of City Planning Matt Owens said “residents are advised to call Hawkesbury Companion Animal Shelter if they feel they have wild dogs on or near their property so that staff can deliver a dog trap. They should bring their pets inside, and safely secure their stock. They can take action as per the Companion Animal Act 1998.”
What does the act say?
- Any person may lawfully seize a dog if that action is reasonable and necessary for the prevention of damage to property.
- Any person may lawfully seize, injure or destroy a dog if that action is reasonable and necessary for the protection of any person or animal (other than vermin) from injury or death.
- However you cannot seize, injure or destroy a dog engaged in droving, tending, working or protecting stock unless the action is reasonable and necessary for the protection of a person from injury or death.
- If a dog that is not under the effective control of some competent person enters any inclosed lands and approaches any animal being farmed on the land, the occupier of the land or any person authorised by the occupier can lawfully injure or destroy the dog if he or she reasonably believes that the dog will molest, attack or cause injury to any of those animals.
- A person who takes action under the authority of this section that results in the injury to or death of a dog must: (a) take reasonable steps to ensure that an injured dog receives any necessary treatment, and (b) report the matter to an authorised officer (unless the person is an authorised officer) and comply with such reasonable directions as the authorised officer may give for the purpose of causing the dog to be returned to its owner or taken to a council pound, and (c) take reasonable steps to inform the owner of the dog.
- You must not contravene the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act1979.
- The authority conferred by this section to destroy a dog extends only to authorising the destruction of the dog in a manner that causes it to die quickly and without unnecessary suffering.
If you have seen a wild dog near you you can also register sightings on www.feralscan.org.au/ wilddogscan/.
