Travelled on a ferry called the Sirius, which is (of course) the brightest star in Canus Major. Interestingly I saw a presentation by the keeper of the dingos (or dingoes, perhaps) about these unique Australian dogs.
The dingo is not a native Australian creature but has been there for many thousands of years and has spread to just about every corner of the continent.
Its arrival seems to have coincided with the disappearance of top predators like the marsupial wolf and cat. Even today a highly successful way of getting rid of domestic cats is to introduce dingos into the area.
But Australian mammals are clearly catching on since the internet over here has been buzzing with a video of a kangaroo that takes a dingo into a river and then drowns it. There has long been a joke about these animals are dangeroos, or dangerous... It may be true.
From an English perspective I was very interested to learn that a highly successful way to keep Australian sheep safe from dingos is to keep a few donkeys. Apparently donkeys kick up a big fuss if there are any dingos in the neighbourhood. and if that isn't enough to deter the dingos, the donkeys will stomp them to death.
You may wonder what this has to do with England? Well for some years now there has been a tremendous fuss about badger culling. Badgers are an apex or top predator rather like dingos. I wonder if a few donkeys could stop badgers from going anywhere near a herd of cattle and hence remove any chance of the spread of bovine tb? It's a thought.
Anyway, the dingo keeper was a real evangelist for dingos pointing out that areas on one side of a fence designed to keep dingos out were green and bio diverse; whereas on the other side the land was scrub. Of course, the dingos were on the green side because what they do is keep the predators in check and this allows the smaller predators to flourish promoting bio diversity.
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Jonathan Brind