00:01A cunning killer or a species trying to survive.
00:06They chew and maul the sheep. They're not there to really eat the animals, they're just
00:12to chew them up and then just leave.
00:16Greg Alcock has run sheep on the family farm for five years.
00:20The mental health stress of wild dogs has impacted us greatly and for our kids that
00:29help us on the farm and love it, it's really impacted them.
00:34A rise in wild dog attacks is making it hard to stay afloat.
00:39Over the last five years we've probably lost close to 400 sheep, which has been a financial hit.
00:48His losses total $60,000.
00:51The best solution is to control them and fund to exclusion fence all our productive
01:02agricultural land so that we're safe.
01:06This traditional owner used to lay wild dog baits in the state's national parks as part
01:12of the 1080 program. But Uncle Lionel Currie left the job a few years ago, feeling guilty
01:19about killing an animal so important to his culture.
01:23Do you think Aboriginal and First Nations people have been listened to in this space?
01:28No, not enough. No, I think this is one of the grounds for the inquiry.
01:34The inquiry received almost 400 submissions, with many urging the Mins government to protect
01:40the apex predator under the state's Biodiversity Conservation Act.
01:45When you take the dingoes away, kangaroo numbers erupt, fox numbers erupt, a lot of our
01:50native animals disappear, the vegetation changes.
01:53They also have an incredible role to suppress and in some cases eradicate introduced species.
01:59So we're talking about goats, foxes, cats, pigs.
02:04These are some of the arguments set to be heard at the inquiry's first day of hearings on Tuesday.
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