The Role of Socialisation in the Taming and Management of Wild Dingoes by Australian Aboriginal People

Simple Summary

The dingo (Canis dingo) is a wild-living canid endemic to mainland Australia; the descendent of an early lineage of dog introduced thousands of years ago to the continent, where it was isolated from further introductions of domestic canines until European colonisation began in 1788. Dingoes are notoriously difficult to maintain in captivity and owing to their predatory nature it is also known that they can pose a serious risk to children. Yet, written records and oral histories indicate that Aboriginal people in mainland Australia routinely practiced the rearing and keeping of dingoes in a tame state within their home communities and domestic spaces. This paper reviews historical and archaeological evidence for the management of wild and captive dingoes by Indigenous communities, revealing a substantial divide between the nature and outcomes of these interactions between historical/pre-contact Aboriginal societies and those in contemporary Australia. It is concluded that this special human-wild canid relationship has implications for the understanding of the domestication of dogs from wolves during the Late Pleistocene.

Abstract

Historical sources and Indigenous oral traditions indicate that Australian Aboriginal people commonly reared and kept the wild-caught pups of dingoes (C. dingo) as tamed companion animals. A review of the available evidence suggests Indigenous communities employed an intense socialisation process that forged close personal bonds between humans and their tame dingoes from an early age. This was complemented by oral traditions which passed down awareness of the dangers to children posed by wild or unfamiliar dingoes, and which communicated the importance of treating dingoes with respect. Together, these practices resulted in what can be interpreted as substantially altered behaviours in tamed dingoes, which, despite their naturally high prey drive, were not considered a serious threat to children and were thus able to be maintained as companion animals in the long term. This relationship is of importance for understanding the original domestication of the dog, as it demonstrates a means by which careful and deliberate socialisation by foragers could both manage risks to children’s safety posed by keeping wild canids in the domestic realm and retain them well into reproductive maturity—both issues which have been highlighted as obstacles to the domestication of dogs from wolves.

Modeling Potential Impacts of Climate Change on the Distribution of Wooly Wolf (Canis lupus chanco)

The Central Asian wolves form a cohort within the wolf-dog clade known as the wooly wolf (Canis lupus chanco). These wolves are poorly studied and their current extent and distribution remain unknown. Apex predators already existing at higher elevations like wooly wolves can be severely affected by climate change because of the absence of suitable refuge. Concomitantly, in the era of Anthropocene, the change in land use land cover (LULC) is rapidly increasing. Even the most adaptable species occurring in human-dominated landscapes may fail to survive under the combined impact of both climate change and human pressure. We collected 3,776 presence locations of the wooly wolf across its range from published literature and compiled 39 predictor variables for species distribution modeling, which included anthropogenic factors, climatic, vegetation, and topographic features. We predicted the change in their distribution under different anthropogenic factors, climate change, and land-use land-cover change scenarios. Wolf showed affinity toward areas with low to moderately warm temperatures and higher precipitations. It showed negative relationships with forests and farmlands. Our future projections showed an expansion of wolf distribution and habitat suitability under the combined effects of future climate and LULC change. Myanmar and Russia had the introduction of high and medium suitability areas for the wooly wolf in future scenarios. Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan showed the consistent loss in high suitability areas while Mongolia and Bhutan had the largest gain in high suitability areas. The study holds great significance for the protection and management of this species and also provides opportunities to explore the impact on associated species.