In what is being described as "an absolute miracle", a second purebred alpine dingo pup — a threatened species — has been found by chance and rescued in north-eastern Victoria.
A year after the discovery of Wandi, who was found crying in a backyard near Bright after possibly being dropped from an eagle's talons, the latest pup has been found almost 400 kilometres away.
In June, a cattle farmer near Jamieson, 190 kilometres north-east of Melbourne, discovered what he initially thought was a koala huddled in the middle of a dirt track.
But as he and his son edged closer, they realised the tiny ball of fluff was a very young, abandoned pup.
The family handed the pup — named Sooty because of his unusual dark colouring and in honour of the year of Victoria’s most destructive bushfires — to the Australian Dingo Foundation (ADF).
Sanctuary Supervisor Kevin Newman said the abandoned pup was only about five or six weeks old when he was found.
"We are often told in Victoria that there are all these wild dogs and there are no pure dingoes left in the wild, but now we’ve got these two dingo pups in two separate years which have proved otherwise," Mr Newman said.
Dr Kylie Cairns, a molecular biologist the UNSW Centre for Ecosystem Science, tested the pup's DNA and confirmed it was a purebred alpine dingo.
"He shows no evidence of domestic dog ancestry and he is a further reminder that wild dingoes do persist in Victoria,” Dr Cairns said.
She said it was important to understand that dingoes were a native species and were vital to the function of a healthy natural ecosystem as the apex predator.
"It is troubling to see the term wild dog being so widely used for this native species because generally people do not realise that this term is used to lump dingoes in with roaming feral domestic dogs,” Dr Cairns said.
Australian Dingo Foundation founder and director Lyn Watson said Sooty was found in an area where dingoes were actively baited, trapped and shot.
She said it was likely that Sooty was orphaned and left to starve because his parents had been culled.
"For 10 years Victorians have been misled to believe that alpine dingoes have virtually disappeared from the Victorian landscape," she said.
"To have another wild alpine dingo cub, testing as pure, randomly found just a year after Wandi, is an absolute miracle."
Sooty will now join Wandi and other purebred dingoes at the Australian Dingo Foundation’s Dingo Discovery Centre and Research Sanctuary in Toolern Vale, 40 kilometres north-west of Melbourne.
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