The world's longest fence was initially built to control invasive rabbits, a project that completely failed. The costly infrastructure was later adapted and extended to manage dingo populations, demonstrating how a failed public works project can find a new, more effective purpose.
By removing an apex predator from one side, the fence fundamentally altered the landscape. This created two different ecosystems with distinct vegetation, animal populations, and even changes in desert dune formation—a divide so profound it can be observed from space.
For decades, dingoes were viewed as invasive feral dogs, which justified widespread extermination policies. The modern scientific consensus that they are a unique, native Australian species has created a deep cultural and political conflict over their management, pitting conservation against agricultural interests.
On Gari (Fraser Island), tourism brings awareness to dingo conservation but also causes the conflicts that endanger them. Tour operators market dingoes as cute mascots, which encourages unsafe tourist behavior. This leads to tragic attacks that result in the culling of the very animals the tourists came to see.
Although the wool industry's economic dominance has faded, removing the dingo fence is considered "political suicide." The structure has transformed into a powerful symbol of Australia's agricultural heritage, making its costly maintenance a political tool for politicians to show support for farmers, regardless of ecological cost.
Australia's massive dingo eradication efforts were not just a local farming issue. They were driven by the British textile industry's immense demand for wool, which made sheep farming the powerhouse of the Australian economy and turned the native dingo into a major economic threat that had to be eliminated.