The Longest Fence in the World

Summary

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99% Invisible – "The Longest Fence in the World"

Host: Roman Mars
Reporter: Shirley Wong
Date: February 24, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of 99% Invisible explores the story of the Dingo Fence, the world’s longest fence, which crosses southeastern Australia. Reporter Shirley Wong travels to the small town of Jindawi to uncover the history, ecological impact, and cultural significance of this enormous barrier. Through interviews with locals, scientists, and Aboriginal rangers, the episode examines how design choices—intended to solve one problem—can create unexpected, far-reaching consequences.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introducing the Dingo Fence (00:00–04:36)

• Roman Mars introduces the concept of “hidden” infrastructure and points out that while the longest wall and bridge are in China, the world’s longest fence is in Australia.
• Shirley Wong visits Jindawi, Queensland, to meet Doug Henning and see where the 5,000+ km fence begins:

  “It’s not much to look at. Just a regular wire fence that’s about 6ft tall to prevent dingoes from jumping over.” (04:02, Shirley Wong)

2. Why Build a Fence? Colonizers, Rabbits, and Sheep (05:00–11:42)

• British colonization introduced invasive species—rabbits, foxes, deer, pigs, goats—wreaking havoc on native ecology.
• The original fences were "rabbit-proof," aimed at preventing rabbit invasions, but ultimately failed:

  “It wasn’t successful. Rabbits ended up going all throughout Australia.” (07:50, Thomas Newsome)

• The burgeoning wool industry drove the true expansion of fencing. By the late 1800s, sheep outnumbered people 50 to 1.
• Dingoes—the continent’s apex predator—became the main threat to sheep, leading to government bounties and then large-scale efforts to keep dingoes and sheep strictly apart.

3. Transformation & Maintenance: The Dingo Fence Legacy (11:42–15:49)

• Old rabbit fences were joined and heightened to create a dingo barrier zone.
• At its peak, the fence was nearly 9,600 km; today, it's about 5,500 km (~3,400 mi).
• Doug Henning and Shirley tour the fence; damage from animals—kangaroos, echidnas—is constant:

  “There’s a hole underneath there... Something’s got through here. So they’ve come along and put another piece in there.” (14:22, Doug Henning)

• The fence remains a significant financial and logistical commitment—$10 million annually.

4. Ecological Consequences (15:11–17:32)

• The fence disrupts migration and natural animal movement; some animals (emus, kangaroos, wallabies) are blocked from food and water.
• Removing dingoes triggered ecological imbalances, especially an overabundance of kangaroos and increased red fox and feral cat numbers, threatening native species:

  “The most visible effects are that when dingoes are removed, kangaroos in particular, their numbers explode.” (15:50, Thomas Newsome)

• Even from space, the fence's effects are visible—differing vegetation and sand dune patterns on either side.

5. Cultural and Political Complexity (17:32–21:02)

• Despite the declining importance of sheep farming, the fence remains politically untouchable:

  “It would be very difficult... for a politician to come out and say, we’re going to tear down the dingo fence.” (17:58, Thomas Newsome)

• The fence is symbolic—of Australia’s agricultural history and perceived as essential to rural identity.
• Dingoes were long considered pests or “feral dogs.” Only in recent decades have scientists and the public appreciated their status as a unique native species.

  “They were such beautiful creatures. It seemed really strange that they had been greatly misrepresented.” (21:18, Dr. Justine Phillip)

6. A Place Where Dingoes Run Free: Gari (Fraser Island) (26:24–31:15)

• Gari (formerly Fraser Island) is a World Heritage Site where dingoes live mostly undisturbed.
• Aboriginal stewardship, notably by the Batchula people, emphasizes coexistence and non-lethal management:

  “If you see a wangara even looking or lurking around, you make him know that that’s your camp area.” (27:51, Tessa Waia)

• Tourism heavily exploits dingo imagery, sometimes dangerously misleading visitors:

  “The dingoes, he’s not a party animal. The message I guess is, you know, play it safe. These are naturally wild animals.” (29:47, Boyd Blackman)

7. Tragedy, Controversy, and the Future (31:15–33:47)

• Recent fatal dingo encounter with a tourist (Piper James) reignites debates about tourism and dingo management on Gari.
• Aboriginal Corporation and scientists criticize the government’s decision to cull a dingo pack after the incident, citing lack of consultation and harm to genetic diversity:

  “These Wangiris, they're punished for doing what they do naturally. It’s not right.” (33:19, Tessa Waia)

• The episode closes by reflecting on the dingo’s complex role in Australian culture: protected in some contexts, vilified in others, requiring a “complicated rebalancing” for true coexistence.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Fence’s Purpose:

  “The dingo barrier fence is a remarkable piece of infrastructure, and not just because of its length. This simple wire structure has actually transformed the entire ecology of Australia.” (04:38, Shirley Wong)

• On Rabbits as Invaders:

  “Those 24 animals bred like, well, rabbits...” (06:26, Roman Mars)

• On Political Sensitivity:

  “To suggest even that you take it down is considered very un-Australian.” (18:42, Dr. Justine Phillip)

• On Scientific Revelation:

  “They started to understand … their ecological role, but also understanding, well, what are dingoes?” (19:38, Thomas Newsome)

• On Coexistence:

  “...the wangarees are their family. You know, it’s like their brothers, their sisters...” (33:19, Tessa Waia)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00 — Episode opens; Roman Mars on “hidden” infrastructure facts
• 01:42 — Shirley Wong arrives in Jindawi, QLD, to meet Doug Henning
• 05:12 — Impact of introduced species and origins of the rabbit-proof fence
• 09:05 — Rise of the wool industry; escalation of the dingo threat
• 13:02 — Rabbit fences retrofit as Dingo Fence; immense scale
• 15:31 — Ecological cascade after dingoes removed
• 17:53 — Cultural and political fixation on the fence
• 19:00 — Changing public/scientific views of dingoes
• 26:48 — Introduction to Gari (Fraser Island) and dingo management
• 30:38 — Tourism, dingo attacks, and management controversies
• 31:15 — Fatal incident, its aftermath, and debates over culling
• 33:47 — Concluding reflections on coexistence

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Conclusion

“The Longest Fence in the World” looks past the easily-overlooked wire barrier to reveal a web of history, ecological complexity, cultural symbolism, and tough choices. The fence's legacy touches colonial ambition, agricultural economics, invasive species, and the long-running contest over what—and who—gets to shape Australia’s wild places. As Roman Mars notes, design is everywhere, and sometimes its most enduring consequences are those no one intended.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

The longest fence in the world begins just a few hours north of Brisbane on the outskirts of a small town called Jindowi. Jindawi has a hardware store, an accountant's office, a butcher shop, a a beauty salon, and a small hotel on top of a pub. Oh, I've got a meat tray raffle. I love those. But I wasn't here to win a meat tray. I came to Jindawi to meet Doug Henning. He's a former tourism officer who agreed to give me a tour of the fence his town is famous for.

[A]

Hi.

[B]

So nice to meet you.

[C]

Yes, thank you. I've been watching the weather.

[B]

Amazing.

[C]

The clouds are going that way, so we should be lucky this afternoon.

[B]

Okay, great. I met up with Doug outside the Jindawi Cultural center right in the middle of town. And he was standing next to an almost seven foot tall sculpture of a dog.

[C]

It's all made from small pieces of metal welded together.

[B]

This metallic hound is a dingo, an animal that can only be found on the island continent of Australia.

[A]

Dingoes are Australia's apex predator. They are smaller than wolves, but can run just as fast. They are lean and extremely athletic. They have reddish blond fur, white bellies, and pointy ears. They look kind of like, I don't know, buff shiba Inus.

[B]

Given this giant, prominent statue, you might think that the people of Gendawi worshiped the mighty dingo. But Doug informed me this is very much not the case. So there's not a lot of dingo fans in town.

[C]

Not a great lot.

[B]

In fact, Jindawi's famous fence was built to keep dingoes out.

[A]

It's called the dingo barrier fence, and it stretches across the southeastern corner of the continent, separating dingoes from the part of the country where the vast majority of Australians actually live. And it is the longest continuous fence

[B]

in the world at over 5,000 km. The dingo barrier fence is longer than the distance between San Francisco and New York City.

[A]

This is it.

[B]

And in a field just outside of Jindawi is where the fence starts.

[C]

That big tree there is the true start of the fence, and it goes that way.

[B]

To be honest, it's not much to look at. Just a regular wire fence that's about 6ft tall to prevent dingoes from jumping over. I want to stand next to it and see if it goes above my head. I think it should. I'm five, four. Okay. I'm like about the same height as it.

[C]

You are standing on a 12 inch mound.

[B]

I am standing on. Okay, fair enough. The fence starts here in the middle of a cattle pasture, and from there it runs all the way across the continent. Just goes on and on and on all the way to South Australia.

[C]

Yeah, that's lovely.

[B]

The dingo barrier fence is a remarkable piece of infrastructure, and not just because of its length. This simple wire structure has actually transformed the entire ecology of Australia. It has split the continent in two, separating animal populations and changing the landscape so much that you can see the effects from space.

[A]

When you drive around Australia, fences are everywhere. They're used to control the movement of a lot of different kinds of animals. In fact, the dingo fence was originally built to manage a different creature altogether.

[B]

When British colonizers came to Australia in the late 18th century, they wanted this new place to feel like home. And so they took the plants and animals of Europe with them.

[D]

And a lot of these species were actually brought in in a lot of cases for hunting, to allow people to go hunt these animals that they're used to going to hunt in their home countries.

[B]

This is Thomas Newsome, an ecologist and associate professor at the University of Sydney.

[D]

So foxes, for example, were brought in so people could hunt them. Cats were brought in. They were kept as pets, and they established wild populations. But in Australia, we've got other species that were brought in Deer, pigs, goats, they were all brought in for some form of a purpose.

[A]

But that didn't turn out so well. Because of Australia's island geography, the native plants and animals there evolved in relative isolation, which made them particularly vulnerable to invasive species. And without a large number of natural predators, many of these new European creatures ran riot.

[D]

Unfortunately, all of those, the ones I've listed, and many more, have created devastating effects on our fauna.

[B]

The most destructive invader was, surprisingly, the rabbit.

[A]

Rabbits came to Australia all because of one man, Thomas Austin, whose brother shipped him 24 rabbits from England as a gift. Over the next three years, those 24 animals bred like, well, rabbits, and soon there were thousands. The rabbits damaged crops, overgrazed grasses, spread diseases, dug holes wherever they pleased. Basically, they were the worst gift ever and made one man go down in Australian history as the guy who caused the rabbit plague.

[B]

People tried to hunt them and cull them, but there were just too many. And so in 1901, the government created a rabbit department and hired an inspector to study the rabbit population. He found that rabbits hadn't yet crossed into certain agricultural areas. And that gave him an idea.

[D]

Through years and years of trying to trap these animals, which was unsuccessful, the next step is to try and create a barrier.

[A]

Rabbits can't climb very easily. They hop, but not particularly high. And so the idea was that they would stop the rabbits.

[D]

So rabbit proof fences were established to try and stop and contain the spread of rabbits throughout Australia.

[B]

They built three different fences in an effort to seal off a large portion of the continent as a rabbit free zone. But the rabbits managed to find a way around all of them.

[D]

It wasn't successful. Rabbits ended up going all throughout Australia.

[B]

Other states built rabbit fences during this period that also failed. And so in the end, the government had all these rabbit fences across, serving no purpose. Over the years, the fences began to disintegrate.

[A]

But around this time, another European animal was taking over Australia. And soon all those rusty rabbit fences would be given a new purpose.

[B]

In the 1800s, wool was a critical material for the British textile industry. But Great Britain didn't have enough land to produce the sheep themselves, so they turned their colony down under.

[E]

In 1802, Lord Hobart, who is one of the Pooh Bahs of the British colonial administration, he says, you know, absolutely, we want to encourage these colonists to develop fine wool that can suit our manufacturearies.

[B]

That's Trish Fitzsimmons, co author of the book Unraveling the History of Wool and War. Trish says that for the first time ever, the Reddish landscape of Australia began to be dotted with little white sheep.

[A]

And over time, the little white dots multiplied. By 1880, there were 100 million sheep in Australia, nearly 50 times the number of people.

[B]

Australian wool was particularly critical. For the British military, wool was the best material for the battlefield because it was waterproof and flame resistant. And by the time World War I rolled around, it was clear that the countries with access to wool had a huge strategic advantage.

[E]

World War I has got so many more soldiers than any previous war. I want to say 60 or 70 million. Each of those men needs something like 20 sheep to support them, keep them alive, keep them warm, just in one year.

[A]

World War I cemented wool as the foundation of the Australian economy. But as the industry continued to grow, farmers needed more land for grazing. And so they started to breed sheep that could survive in the super dry marginal regions of the continent. And it was there that the economic superstar of Australia, the sheep, met its great adversary, the dingo.

[E]

As the wool industry gathers a head of steam, the areas of the continent where sheep are grown starts to expand out into the continent. Those sheep are vulnerable to dingoes.

[A]

For dingoes, the expansion of sheep into the interior was like a free buffet.

[B]

But for farmers, the situation was a nightmare. Dingoes are highly effective pack hunters. They are pretty much Australia's version of the big bad wolf. And farmers would wake up and find that dozens of their sheep had been killed or maimed in dingo attacks.

[A]

Because of the size of the flocks and their remote locations, it wasn't a simple problem to fix.

[F]

The whole wool industry itself is set up so you can't have predators. It's not financially viable to be out there protecting the sheep.

[B]

That's Dr. Justine Philipp, an environmental historian.

[F]

You need to be able to put out these flocks of sheep which number, you know, at least 2,000. You're not talking about a small flock, you're talking 2,000 and upwards, you know, 20,000, 100,000 sheep. And they basically put them out to pasture and they don't supervise them. So you can't do that without being pretty confident that you've got rid of all the predators in the surrounding area.

[A]

Farmers wanted to completely eliminate this threat. And because the wool industry was so politically powerful, they got their wish. Australia went to war with the dingo.

[B]

First, they created incentive programs that encouraged farmers to kill dingoes. Soon there were professional dingo hunters and trappers who were paid bounties for every dingo they killed.

[A]

And then after World War II, Australia ramped up its assault. A newspaper headline from 1946 read D Day for dingoes above an article describing a plan to drop over 300,000 poisonous dingo baits across the landscape.

[F]

And so that really brought the whole system up a notch because instead of having to do ground baiting and doing everything on foot, they actually took to the air and on these airplanes which had come back from the war and weren't in use. And they had lots of pilots that were available for work. And so they started doing enormous aerial baiting projects across Australia.

[A]

But at the same time they were slaughtering these animals, the wool industry was developing a different strategy, a plan to keep dingoes and sheep permanently separate. They would take all of those defunct rabbit fences and use them for dingoes instead.

[B]

And so the rabbit proof fences were given a dingo renovation. They joined the old rabbit fences together and raised them up to a height that could keep dingoes out.

[D]

Eventually they had a big dingo fence which was once actually 9,600 kilometers long and it's now still huge. Five and a half thousand kilometers long.

[A]

That's around 3,400 miles, cutting across scrublands and desert. And though the fence didn't effectively keep out rabbits, it did succeed in its second purpose. Thomas says the fence effectively sealed off nearly a third of the continent as a dingo free zone.

[C]

See, we're here at this point here now, and it goes that way, then that way, then it goes all the way.

[B]

Wow, there's some wallabies over there. I see them galloping.

[C]

That's a kangaroo.

[B]

Kangaroo, yep. I'm back in Gendawi in the eastern state of Queensland, and I'm walking along the dingo fence with Doug Henning.

[A]

Australia still spends big money on this fence. $10 million a year funded through state and local governments and a fence tax on sheep and cattle farmers.

[B]

The fence is maintained by a team of patrolmen who divvy up the length and each take care of a section. Doug pointed to a hole that had been patched over.

[C]

See this piece of mesh here?

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

There's a hole underneath there.

[B]

Okay, I see that.

[C]

Yeah, Something's got through here. So they've come along and put another piece in there.

[B]

Okay, yeah. What kind of animal would have made that hole?

[C]

Oh, be very hard to say. I don't know.

[A]

Porcupine.

[B]

Porcupine.

[C]

Echidna. Not a porcupine. That's a different echidna. Sometimes we'll dig a hole like that under a fence.

[B]

All along the fence there are large dents where the wire has been caved.

[F]

In.

[B]

So what are the dents that we see in the fence? Mainly kangaroos from running into it. They run into it hard enough that

[C]

it they'll dent it, they'll dent the fence.

[B]

The animals of the outback damage the dingo fence all the time, but that's nothing compared to the damage the fence does to them.

[A]

The fence interrupts migration patterns and prevents animals from moving around in search of food or water. Emus, kangaroos and wallabies all get stuck behind the fence. Some of these creatures play an important ecological role transporting seeds. And so the fence has impacted plant diversity as well.

[B]

But one of the biggest effects the fence has had on the environment was just removing the dingo from a massive chunk of the continent. As Australia's apex predator, the dingo kept other animal populations in check. And when the dingo went away, it set alpha cascade of ecological consequences.

[D]

The most visible effects are that when dingoes are removed, kangaroos in particular, their numbers explode.

[B]

That's ecologist Thomas Newsome. Again, he says that because there are no dingoes eating them, there are actually too many kangaroos in Australia.

[A]

I mean, can there really be such a thing as too many kangaroos?

[B]

Yes. It's gotten to the point where some of my vegan friends who are vegan for ethical reasons will make an exception for kangaroos because hunting them helps control the population. The excess number of kangaroos is a genuine problem in Australia.

[D]

They end up over grazing the landscape, taking away the food and shelter that's available for small mammals and birds and reptiles.

[A]

The population of red foxes and feral cats has also gone up in the absence of dingoes, which in turn has driven native Australian species like bilbies and bandicoots to near extinction.

[B]

But the impacts of the dingo fence go beyond wildlife. On the dingo side, there are more grasses and leafy ground cover, while on the side without dingoes, there are more dry, woody shrubs. The fence has created essentially two different ecological universes on either side.

[D]

So there's studies showing that you can see the effects of the dingo fence from space, both in terms of the vegetation that's there on either side, but also they've linked it to changes in dune morphology as well.

[A]

In the desert on the dingo side of the fence, the land is looser, with dunes that shift in the wind. It's closer to the way the landscape would have looked before colonization.

[B]

All of this is the ecological price that Australia keeps paying year after year to keep a whole bunch of sheep safe. But the thing is, the wool industry isn't really what it used to be. And sheep are no longer the backbone

[A]

of the economy, which makes Australia's commitment to the dingo fence a little hard to understand.

[B]

What are the conversations around the fence these days like? Do people want to tear them down?

[D]

It's still a hotly debated topic, both among scientists, but also with people who are trying to run sheep or livestock operations in these areas as well. So it would be very difficult, for example, for a politician to come out and say, we're going to tear down the dingo fence.

[A]

It turns out tearing down the dingo fence is a political third rail.

[F]

It's not a topic that people would approach normally because it was considered political suicide to talk about removing the dingo fence.

[B]

Here's Justine Phillip again. She says the fence is a symbol of Australia's agricultural heritage and for politicians who want to show support for farmers, the dingo fence must be upheld.

[F]

To suggest even that you take it down is considered very un Australian.

[B]

I have to admit, I was a bit confused hearing Justine say this. I mean, sure, the fence is iconic, unique, totally Australian, but I kept thinking, so is the dingo.

[A]

The thing is, the general public hasn't always seen the dingo as this one of a kind Australian animal, like the kangaroo or the koala. In fact, for. For a long time, people thought dingoes were just regular domestic dogs that had

[B]

gone wild growing up. Even Justine believed this.

[F]

I thought that they would be like a really wild feral dog. I had no idea that they were a separate species.

[B]

People didn't start to appreciate the dingo until the 1960s, when scientists, including Thomas Newsom's dad Alan, began conducting in depth research on how unique the dingo truly was.

[D]

They started to understand their movements, their behaviours and their diet. And that really formed the basis for understanding their ecological role, but also understanding, well, what are dingoes? Because there's also a lot of interest in, well, what are they?

[A]

Dingoes are a bit hard to classify. Experts say they are descendants of a primitive Asian dog that came to Australia either with seafarers or by land bridge, somewhere between 4,000 and 10,000. This has led to some debate about whether or not dingoes should be considered native to Australia.

[B]

But the fact is, dingoes evolved in Australia and over centuries they came to thrive in a range of habitats all over the continent, from the desert to the tropical rainforest to the Australian Alps. They eventually spent enough time in Australia that they became genetically distinct from their ancestors, meaning the modern dingo has never lived anywhere else.

[A]

Dingoes were shaped not only by the Australian landscape, but by the people who live there. Before colonization, dingoes had deeply intimate relationships with humans. To the Aboriginal people of Australia, they were partners in hunting and water finding. Dingoes evolved as a crucial part of Aboriginal life and often resided in their camps, sometimes as protectors or sometimes as companions.

[B]

Over time, the scientific consensus shifted and people began to understand the dingo as a native Australian species. And as researchers highlighted the dingo's origin story, it brought in a whole new generation of dingo fans like Justine.

[F]

I did a master's in animal science and then I did my PhD and a lot of that was around this interest in their misrepresentation, basically. And they were such beautiful creatures. It seemed really strange that they had been greatly misrepresented.

[B]

I also have a lot of sympathy for underappreciated animals, including the dingo. I think it's probably because I watched too much Steve Irwin as a kid on TV. In 1996, Steve visited the dingo fence for an episode of the Crocodile Hunter.

[A]

We're here in southeast Queensland and this is the start of the dingo fence. Now the dingo fence was established, Steve

[B]

drove along the length of the dingo fence and he was disturbed by what he saw. Hunters and trappers had left dead dingo carcasses everywhere.

[A]

We find it very difficult to come

[C]

to terms with seeing dead animals strung up in fences and trees.

[A]

It's been 30 years since Steve Irwin recorded that episode. The dingo fence still exists and people continue to hunt these creatures to keep their populations down. But there is a growing sense in Australia that this is an animal worth protecting. Coming up after the break, we take you to an island off the coast of Australia where dingoes run free and where a recent tragedy has people asking whether dingoes and humans can safely coexist. Every business starts with an idea. How can you go from daydreamer to industry leader? Amazon Business accelerates your journey with smart business buying. Get everything you need to grow in one familiar place. From office supplies to IT essentials and maintenance tools. Amazon Business takes the buying experience you know and love from Amazon. Plus tools that help you save costs and make insights based decisions ready to bring your visions to life. Learn [e-mail] consider the impact of thoughtful design on your life. How beauty can capture your imagination. How how it can guide you, empower you and enrich everything you do. When you get behind the wheel of a Buick, the power of purposeful design is felt in every detail. From the sculptural presence and elegant finishes of the Buick and Vista to the intuitive technology and spacious sophistication of the Buick enclave. Every Buick vehicle leads to more dynamic drives, more captivating discoveries and and more rewarding moments every day. Visit Buick.com to discover luxury that can be yours right now. That's Buick.com Buick exceptional by design New Year New look for your home with Article it's easier than ever to transform your home with stylish and long lasting pieces that fit your budget and your style. They offer a curated selection of mid century, modern, coastal and Scandi inspired pieces that would make a perfect addition to your home. And with Article's 30 day satisfaction guarantee, you can shop with confidence so I've had a couple of dining chairs at my kitchen table that I bought at a fancy brick and mortar design store and I've had them just about four years and the seat support has already collapsed and they're falling apart and I'm finally going to replace them with Wasla accorded dining chairs from Article. All my article pieces, of which there are many, many in my home, have never broken down, they've never gotten worn out from use and I'm so excited to get rid of these other chairs that have been the bane of my existence. So in 2026 I'm getting rid of all the furniture that frustrates me in my house and replacing it with Article. Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit article.com 99 and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com 99 for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Whether you're just starting out or scaling your business, Squarespace is the Designed to help your business stand out and succeed online, Squarespace gives you everything you need to offer services and get paid all in one place. From consultations to events and experiences. Showcase your offerings with a customizable website designed to attract clients and grow your business. Get paid on time with professional on brand invoices and online payments, plus streamline your workflow with built in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools. I set up Romanmars.com on Squarespace I don't know, 12, 13 years ago and here's the best testimony that I can give. I never worry about it. I designed it myself. It just works. It updates on its own. It is never down as far as I know. It is just great. Head to squarespace.com invisible for a free trial and when you're Ready to launch. Use offer code Invisible to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[B]

When I finished touring the dingo fence with Doug, I was a little disappointed that apart from the metal sculpture, Doug and I hadn't actually seen a dingo. But there is another place in Australia where anyone who wants to see dingoes is likely to find them. It's an island that was once called Fraser island, but now goes by its indigenous Batchula name, Gari.

[A]

Gari is covered in tropical rainforest with long white sand beaches and a series of spectacular freshwater lakes. The island is home to a small population of dingoes that have evolved in isolation from the animals on the mainland. When Gari was named a UNESCO World heritage site in 1992, the dingoes on the island were officially named an indigenous species and provided legal protection, meaning they are allowed to roam free.

[B]

The Batchula Aboriginal Corporation hires rangers to deal specifically with dingoes, which they call wangari. It's a role that Batchula people have played for thousands of years, long before colonization. They recognize dingoes as dangerous animals, but ones that were worth keeping around.

[A]

And they developed non lethal ways to manage them. For example, if a dingo got too familiar or audacious, they would ward him off with safety sticks. And the tips they give the visitors today are directly informed by the old ways, like if you're in a camp

[G]

area, you make sure if you see a wangara even looking or lurking around, you make him know that that's your camp area.

[B]

Tessa Waia is an officer for the Batchula Aboriginal Corporation, and she works with park rangers. Ongari. A big part of her job is educating people on how to be safe

[G]

around dingoes, you know, with a loud voice, shout, yell. He will know because that's your being the dominant one. And I said, and he will just watch from afar because he knows he's not welcome in there. And that's how that was managed back in the old times to now. You know what I mean?

[B]

Tessa told me she believed humans and dingoes can live alongside each other on Ghari peacefully, just like in the past. But there are real obstacles, including the sheer volume of tourists.

[A]

Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit Gari every year. Many of those people come specifically to catch a glimpse of a dingo, this animal that they've been fenced off from on the mainland. And the tour operators use the dingo like a cute mascot to advertise their services. Here's an ad for a tour of the island featuring a strange dingo puppet. Narrator G'.

[B]

Day.

[C]

Daryl the Fraser island dingo, here to tell you about the absolute best Fraser island tag along tour your money can buy.

[A]

Forget about Rainbow Beach.

[B]

Boyd Blackman is a Batchula elder who has worked for 30 years as a ranger in the park. A few years ago, he saw a tour bus with an image of a particularly ridiculous looking cartoon dingo.

[C]

The actual dingo was wearing, you know, like a party hat and sunglasses and he had sneakers on and with a Hawaiian shirt and it said, come party with me.

[B]

Boyd says that advertisements like this give tourists the wrong impression about these animals. Sometimes tourists get too close or even try to take a selfie with a dingo.

[C]

You know, for a lot of those backpackers and people that come, I think they might have looked at it as, you know, a lot of people found out that koalas are cute and they're cuddly until they pull their claws out. The dingoes, he's not a party animal. The message I guess is, you know, play it safe. These are naturally wild animals.

[B]

Tessa says that the volume of tourists has caused some of Garhi's dingoes to become habituated to humans. They eat from trash cans and hang around tourists campsites. And that has led to some serious problems.

[A]

There have been a number of high profile dingo attacks over the years. You've probably heard about the famous dingo ate my baby case in the 1980s, which happened on the mainland. But there have also been attacks on gari. In 2001, a young boy was killed by dingoes while camping with his family.

[B]

After that tragedy, the government culled dingoes and fenced in some of the largest townships on the island to try and keep people safe. But tourism has only increased since then. And while dingo attacks on people are rare, they've been happening more and more in recent years as the island gets more crowded. The Batchula Aboriginal Corporation wants the government to restrict tourism or even close the island altogether during times of the year when dingoes are particularly active. But so far this has been a non starter.

[A]

And then, just as we were getting ready to publish this episode, we begin

[B]

tonight with a tragedy on Gari.

[A]

A young Canadian tourist named Piper James was found dead on the beach in Gari.

[B]

Her body was discovered surrounded by a pack of dingoes with significant bite wounds.

[A]

The exact cause of her death is still unclear. An initial assessment suggests that she drowned, but also that she had been bitten by dingoes before she died.

[B]

I called Tessa back to see how the community on the island was responding.

[G]

The community is very shaken up and it's just distressing. Like, you know, I could only imagine what the. The parents, you know, are going through. And so, yeah, I mean, it's quite heartbreaking.

[B]

Tessa wouldn't be surprised if dingoes had been involved in Piper's death. She says the Bachelor Aboriginal Corporation has been saying for years that something like this might happen.

[G]

Look, I can't. I was surprised, but wasn't so much a shock in that sense because we've been actually telling the government that, you know, there needs to be a cap on the visitor numbers, and then they want to say, oh, are we so shocked? Well, no, you were warned.

[B]

The tragedy on Gari made international news, and it has sparked a lot of fierce debates about how to respond. In the end, the government made the decision to euthanize the pack of 10 dingoes that had been found near the body, arguing it was necessary for public safety.

[A]

But several scientists have questioned that decision, arguing that previous dingo calls have not made the island safer. There are somewhere between 70 and 200 dingoes left on Gari, and scientists argue that killing any of these animals reduces critical genetic diversity and makes the population much more vulnerable to extinction.

[B]

The Bachula Aboriginal Corporation says they were not consulted about the decision to cull the dingoes. And when Tessa found out that the animals had been killed, she was devastated.

[G]

So when we had found out, it was very sad. Everyone was sad, you know, because to the Bachelor people, the wangarees are their family. You know, it's like their brothers, their sisters, you know, like. So that's, you know, how significant these animals are to them. These Wangiris, they're punished for doing what they do naturally. It's not right.

[A]

Dingoes have a fraught history in Australia. They are an iconic, charismatic animal, but they are also dangerous predators and have often been treated as a problem or a pest. Dingoes have been fenced out and killed off to make way for human activity. The Aboriginal history in a place like Gari shows that humans and dingoes can coexist. But coexistence in the modern world world will require a complicated rebalancing of the relationship. This is a difficult but necessary challenge because these are beautiful creatures and Australia is their only home. 99% Invisible was reported this week by Shirley Wong. Produced and edited by Emmett Fitzgerald with help from Kelly. Prime mix by Martin Gonzalez, music by Swan Rial and George Langford. Fact checking by Sona Avakian. Special thanks to David Murakamthura, Madeline Shaw, co author of the book Fleeced, and Ronald Breckwald, author of the book The True story of Australia's Most Maligned Native animal. Kathy Tu is our executive producer, Curt Kohlsted is the digital director, Delaney hall is our senior editor. The rest of the team includes Chris Barube, Jason De Leon, Christopher Johnson, Vivian Leigh, Lashma Dawn, Joe Rosenberg, Jacob Medina, Gleason, Talon and Rain Stradley and me, roman Mars. The 99% invisible logo was created by Stefan Lawrence. We are part of the SiriusXM podcast family now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building in beautiful uptown Oakland, California. You can find us on all the usual social media sites as well as our own Discord server. There's a link to that as well as every past episode of [e-mail].

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