Statement from the Hon. Mark Pearson, MLC:

“Yesterday morning the Animal Justice Party was made aware of two photos circulating on social media of two dingoes caught in traps, apparently in the Scone region of NSW. There were claims these dingoes had been trapped for three days. We have no proof to indicate the dingoes were handled illegally.

The Animal Justice Party managed to make contact with a local farmer from the region who confirmed the photo was recent but that the dingoes had not been trapped for more than 12 hours before being “despatched”. The farmer claimed the person who killed the dingoes is a licensed trapper, and was instructed to take photos before killing the trapped dingoes.

In NSW, wild dogs, or dingoes, are declared a pest under the Local Land Services Act (2013) which means landholders are legally allowed to kill any dingoes on their property. By law, traps must be checked every 24 hours.

The padded traps visible in the photos that were circulated on social media are not steel-jaw traps (which are now illegal) but nonetheless have the ability to break bones and leave animals in agony and terror until they are shot.

The Animal Justice Party does not condone any form of lethal animal “control”. We believe this situation – the disturbing but legal and highly public deaths of wild native animals – is a crucial example of how NSW law is failing dingoes.

The dingo is the only Australian mammal not protected under the Biodiversity Conservation Act, and is routinely victim to cruel trapping, “wild dog” fencing, hunting, and baiting, including with the use of 1080 which causes death so slowly and painfully that the poison is banned in most developed countries.

The Animal Justice Party is calling on the NSW Government to ensure dingoes are fully protected under the law, and to ban all lethal forms of wildlife control.”