Vets, RSPCA and Rural Lands Boards lead the way

Australia's peak group for animal welfare, the RSPCA; the Australian Veterinary Association and the NSW  Rural Lands Protections Boards have all come out saying we don't need hybrid dogs and cats in Australia.  These are people that know animals.  They all believe the risk of allowing wild-domestic cross animals into Australia is too high.

It really doesn't matter that the hybrids will be fifth generation away from their wild ancestors.  It is the new genes that matter.  At yesterday's State-wide Conference of Rural Lands Protection Boards in NSW, I showed data from CRC scientists that Australia's wild dog population is getting bigger.  Wild dogs in Southern Australia are 24% bigger than they were prior to 1970.  This implies that the genetic phenomenon of heterosis, or hybrid vigour, is occurring already in Australian wild dogs.  The delegates immediately passed a unanimous resolution to support the Invasive Animals CRC seeking changes to our importation rules.  The system that makes it legal for people to bring wolf-dog hybrids needs to change.  Maybe as many as half a million Americans own a wolf-dog hybrid for example, and we don't want them coming here.

http://www.rspca.org.au/mediareleases/MRShow.asp?ID=146

http://www.ava.com.au/news.php?action=show&news_id=325&c=0

An African Serval, the most efficient wild cat hunter in Africa.  Australia's quarantine regulations make it legal for a cat that is only five generations away from a purebred serval to come into the country.

In a 2007 paper in Science, Carlos Driscoll of Oxford University showed that domestication of the cat probably began 12,000 years ago and was completed 8,000 years ago.  New designer breeds of cat didn't exist 25 years ago.

Comments

[Brenton]

Aren't all dogs related to the wolf?

Are we going to stop the import of all dogs? And who decides what dog is part wolf and what dog isn't?

Then there is your mythical term "hybrid vigor", please, look at the cross breeds that are around at the moment, there are more insurance claims for cross breed than any purbeed animal...

From Tony Peacock:
DNA analysis shows dogs and wolves separated about 100,000 years ago, so yes, they are related - but that's probably 40-50,000 generations. Reclassifying as domestic after five generations back together is silly.

Here's the definition of my "mythical term", from Wikipedia:
"Heterosis is a term used in genetics and selective breeding. The term heterosis, also known as hybrid vigor or outbreeding enhancement, describes the increased strength of different characteristics in hybrids; the possibility to obtain a genetically superior individual by combining the virtues of its parents....

Heterosis is the opposite of inbreeding depression..."