Dingoes make tracks up to Mount Buffalo winter

The rarely seen animal – likely to be a hybrid of Alpine dingo and wild dog – made a new home at the popular Dingo Dell area of the mountain, near the ski school and cafe.

Adventure Guides Australia owner David Chitty, who has worked in tourism at Mount Buffalo for more than 20 years, said they were usually just heard, not seen, in the wild.

“In the past 12 months, we’ve actually been seeing dingoes out in the open, they’ve become less scared of humans,” he told The Border Mail.

“It’s just added a bit of interest this winter, it’s the first winter we’ve been able to see them.”

The dingo was listed as a threatened species in Victoria and was protected in the wild.

Laws prohibited the animals being killed on public land and only on private land in rare circumstances to protect livestock.

Mr Chitty denied they were pests, saying they had adapted well to the alpine environment.

“They don’t pose any danger to the public,” he said.

“Here at Dingo Dell, it’ll come and stand next to your car, if it gets scared it’ll run away.”

The tourism operator had theories about why the animals had started to emerge.

One suggestion was they had adapted to the food supply on the mountain.

“There might have been some population pressure for them to come up to the higher ground,” Mr Chitty said.

“There’s probably two or three groups of dingoes on the mountain.”

He said dingoes were actually good for the animal life of Mount Buffalo because although they did eat some small animals, they also eliminated some of the bigger cats and foxes which did far more damage.

Rangers were also aware of the dingo presence and put up signage asking visitors not to feed the animals.

As well as being dangerous, Mr Chitty said it could hurt the animal population in the quieter months if they started to become dependent on getting food from humans during tourist season.

Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning acting wild dog program manager Barry Davies inspected the dingo photograph, which was taken by the Adventure Guides Australia team last week.

“The animal in this image could be either a wild dog or dingo, as it is generally not possible to visually identify the difference between the two,” he said.

“It is important people remember to treat it as a wild animal, and not feed or approach it."