Oral Presentation- Symposium 12th International Mammalogical Congress

Identifying space use and resource utilisation to understand drivers of human-wildlife conflict: Dingoes (Canis dingo) on Fraser Island (K’gari) (#190)

Naomi J Evans 1 , Jonathan R Rhodes 1 , Armando Apan 2 , Rachel King 3 , Amy L Adams 4 , Patrick Moss 5
  1. Landscape Ecology and Conservation Group, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
  2. School of Civil Engineering and Surveying, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia
  3. School of Agricultural, Computational and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia
  4. Sciences Department, Museum Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  5. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Patterns of conflict in a number of carnivorous species have demonstrated that human-wildlife conflicts may be predictable. However, minimisation of human-wildlife conflict depends on the ability to anticipate the behaviour of each party involved, as well as the timing and location of conflicts. Conflict mitigation requires knowledge of the drivers of these conflicts, including patterns of landscape utilisation of the wildlife species involved. This information is lacking for the dingoes (Canis dingo) on Fraser Island, Queensland. We investigated home range, resource selection and landscape utilisation by Fraser Island dingoes by evaluating for the effects of habitat type and distance to landscape features and areas of high human usage. We used resource utilisation functions (RUFs) to compare resource utilisation at the dingo population level, as well as individuals grouped by sex and age class. Significant differences were found in home range between sexes and day phase, so resource selection analyses were stratified according to these groupings. We show how resource utilisation is influenced by geographic factors (i.e. variation in habitat), temporal influences (i.e. day phase) and population dynamics (i.e. sexes and age). These findings have direct management implications for reducing conflict between people and the dingoes of Fraser Island, and demonstrate the importance of knowledge of landscape utilisation patterns in strategies to minimise human-wildlife conflict.