Another Dog

First up thank you all for your supportive comments about yesterday's post.

Today's post is also about a dog.
Again Lilli is not the topic of conversation, but this time it is a real animal rather than a metaphor.

I have caught glimpses of this young Dingo (Canis lupus dingo) around our place a couple of times but only as a streak disappearing into the rainforest .

This time it didn't realise I was around and I got close enough to get some piccies.

When I was younger dingoes were very rare around here. Oz has been very enlightened about native animals with nearly all listed as protected species for many decades.

Dingoes were seen as damaging to livestock and were listed as pests except inside national parks. In earlier times there were quite substantial bounties offered for dingo scalps. Farmers and trappers, trapped, shot and poisoned so by the 1970s they were very rare in this area.

But things have changed in this area. While these animals are still listed as pests the traditional farming community has declined. Much farmland has either been sold to more 'alternative' incomers, or converted from pastoral land to forestry plantations.

The net result is local dingoes have been left comparatively un-molested.

Things are changing even in the 1990's it was rare to see or hear them.
Now though their numbers have crept up to where on a night of a full moon we can often hear a dozen or more howling along the ranges. An eerie and simultaneously thrilling sound.