Members of the Hinchinbrook Shire Council in Australia have come up with an incredibly cruel way to help save an island in the Great Barrier Reef. To get rid of the 300 feral goats that are eating endangered rainforest plants on Pelorus Island, the council decided to release male dingoes on the island to kill them.
But that's not the worst part of this terrible plan. The dingoes have been implanted with little time bombs--1080 pesticide poison pellets--that will kill them in two years. Death by 1080 is slow and painful. Those poor, doomed dingoes could suffer for days.
"Previous exercises such as trying to trap them or trying to shoot them proved pretty impossible because of the nature of the terrain," Mayor Ramon Jayo told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) News. "…So, when the boys came up with this idea, we just thought, 'Well that's perfect.' This is nature. I mean, the dingo is a predator. The goat is a source of the dingo's affections. So, we believe that we'll just put nature together and that'll sort out a problem."
This idea is far from perfect. Although it was approved by the Australian government, RSPCA Queensland says it was never informed about the plan, which it said "raised grave animal welfare issues."
This despicable plan needs to be stopped. Please sign and share this petition urging the Hinchinbrook Shire Council not to use time-bombed dingoes to kill feral goats on Pelorus Island.
Photo credit: PartnerHund.com
Dear Hinchinbrook Shire Councilmembers,
I urge you to stop using dingoes implanted with 1080 poison to kill the feral goats on Pelorus Island. While your previous attempts to cull the goats may have been unsuccessful, this plan is unnecessarily cruel to the dingoes as well as the goats.
Palm Island Mayor Alf Lacey said there are feral goats on Fantome and Curacoa islands. Instead of sending over time-bombed dingoes to kill them, people hunt and eat the goats. This sounds like one less cruel way to deal with the problem, and there are certainly many other humane solutions that you should consider immediately.
Sincerely,
