Chontelle Burns, Dancing With Dingoes (Animal & Nature 2021)

Dingoes are relentlessly persecuted Australia-wide in many ways including, but not limited to aerial bait drops and shooting, despite being incredibly important to our environment and the survival of our smaller species through their hunting of wild foxes, cats, pigs, rabbits and even water buffalo. Despite living in the bush for 21 years in regional NSW I had never really observed a wild dingo before, so I began researching sightings and locations as an idea formed - I wanted to see them for myself, in the wild, where I would be presented with their natural behaviours and beauty – not the demon that the media and many others had and continue to paint them as. I wanted to show people exactly what they really were: misunderstood, unnecessarily persecuted and unfairly demonized despite being our native top predator who has been on the mainland for several thousand years. In 2018 I made my first attempt to track one down but failed to come up with so much as a track. Not until I had done more research and had more time readily available to give did I attempt over a dozen trips, and with that, began my dance with dingoes. Over the course of my adventures, I learned that dingoes are wild, proud, curious and stoic creatures who hold the role of family above all else.

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