Key messages – Pilot Project Final Report: ‘Establishing Genetic Testing Methods for Dingo Ancestry Estimation’

The National Wild Dog Action Plan commissioned researchers from the Ancient Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at Adelaide University to establish a new genomic testing framework for estimating dingo ancestry in free-roaming wild dog populations.

1. The purpose was to establish a robust, accurate and cost-effective testing framework using ancient pre-colonial DNA as the reference baseline to understand and monitor the genetics of dingoes in Australia.

2.The project demonstrated that low-pass whole-genome sequencing (10,000 sites) can reduce testing costs while maintaining analytical accuracy.

3.The National Wild Dog Action Plan emphasises humane, safe and effective management techniques to mitigate the impacts of wild dogs.

• The dingo is included in the definition of wild dogs for the purposes of the Plan and are managed where they pose a risk or negatively impact primary production, environmental assets or visitors to national parks and reserves.
• The Plan acknowledges the environmental and cultural significance of the dingo, its conservation status and legal protection in a number of jurisdictions and advocates that these considerations are taken into account through the local and regional wild dog management planning process.
• Agencies and state jurisdictions determine management outcomes for wild dogs and dingoes in accordance with legislation and this report does not prescribe management outcomes.

4.The method builds on prior research and uses DNA from an ancient pre-colonial dingo database as the reference baseline for dingo purity.

5.When tested, the 47 samples from across Australia were found to have European domestic dog ancestry ranging from 1.7% to 28.8%, with the highest dingo ancestry (purity) in Central and Western Australia (consistent with prior studies).

6.Samples from south-eastern populations contain higher levels of European dog ancestry (20-28%) and indicate that much of this crossbreeding (admixture) is historical rather that the result of any widespread recent event, with the original crossbreeding events dating back approximately 50–150 years.

7.In comparison with previous genetic studies the report found that microsatellite (STR) testing methods (Stephens et al 2015, Cairns et al 2028) were useful for population scale estimation of dingo purity but showed greater variability for individual samples due to only looking at a small number of genetic markers (n=23).

8.The research also found that in the absence of an ancient dingo reference sample the whole genome SNP analysis of Cairns et al. (2024) underestimated European domestic dog ancestry, by incorrectly treating historically admixed populations as “pure” dingoes, due to comparisons with contemporary (captive bred) dingoes that likely already contained historical European dog ancestry.

9.Similarly, this research supports previous studies that found long term lethal control programs have had limited impact on dingo purity in central and western Australia (Stephens et al. 2023).

10.Effective evidence based wild dog management remains critical to protecting livestock production, animal welfare, biodiversity values, visitor safety and regional community resilience.

11.This project and the genetic testing method developed support the evidence -based objectives of the National Wild Dog Action Plan to inform ongoing management practices for wild dogs, alongside policy development and conservation.

Click here to view the Pilot Project Final Report: ‘Establishing Genetic Testing Methods for Dingo Ancestry Estimation’