About the Pelorus Project

In July 2016, two male dingoes were ferried to a small island off the coast of north Queensland called Jabugay Yanooa (‘Pelorus Island’). They were part of an experimental “feral” goat eradication project. The team behind the project included staff from the local council (Hinchinbrook Shire Council), the Queensland Government’s Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and Dr. Ben Allen, an ecologist from University of Southern Queensland.

The experiment involved the trapping of dingoes on mainland Queensland, their sterilisation and ultimate release as introduced predators to the island's goat population. Their sole purpose: to track, kill and consume the islands unwelcome wild goat population.

Why was the Pelorus Project so controversial?

In a move that made science fiction authors shiver, the dingoes were surgically implanted with an experimental time-bomb capsule of 1080 poison its inventors named "Tik-tok". After it was revealed, the Pelorus Project was condemned by Australians and international observers alike.

At the time, Animal Liberation successfully lobbied the Queensland Government to shut the program down. Many politicians, including then Environment Minister Steven Miles, branded the project as "cruel" and "inhumane". Thankfully, the experiment was cut short and would no longer be allowed to be replicated on other reef islands.

Yet, in what QLD media shamefully called an “ultimate survivor” contest, the only surviving dingo of the unspeakably cruel "death-row dingo" experiment was forced fight again for his life a second time. Their fate remains unknown after the program was shut down.

Now, the island is slated to become Queensland's latest boutique hotel resort with bungalows fetching thousands of dollars a night. The goats were in the way. The dingoes had to die. And it was all for financial gain.

Who is Ben Allen?

Ben Allen is an Australian academic and ecologist. In 2005, he studied applied science and wildlife biology at the University of Queensland and completed a philosophy doctorate in dingo ecology there in 2015. He is currently a vice-chancellors research fellow at the University of Southern Queensland. From 2005 to 2015, Allen was a dingo ecologist at the University of Queensland.

Allen currently sits as vice-president of the Australasian Wildlife Management Society, is a member of the Ecological Society of America and is on the editorial board of the journal Food Webs. Between 2008 and 2012, Allen was a member of the National Wild Dog Management Advisory Group.

Allen authored the Glovebox Guide for Managing Wild Dogs for the precursor to the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions and the peak body of the Australian wool industry, Australian Wool Innovation. The guide states that an advantage of using 1080 is its potential for broad-scale application "by vehicle, plane or helicopter", its inexpensiveness and the flexibility of delivery method. Nevertheless, the guide goes on to concede that 1080 "results in a relatively slow death to poisoned animals".

Many of Allen's studies are cited in government dingo killing plans, such as the South Australian Wild Dog Strategic Plan.

Making a career out of killing dingoes

According to Allen, he has "a keen interest in dingoes". This self-espoused interest, however, often involves killing them.

During 2012, his final year as a member of the advisory group, Allen co-authored a paper with staff members of the NSW Department of Primary Industries and the Queensland Government for Meat & Livestock Australia. The paper provided a series of recommendations regarding "wild dog management". One of these prioritised aerial baiting, the efficacy of different bait types and deliveries methods, and "social barriers to wild dog management and control". It also assessed the welfare impacts of other techniques, including Lethal Trap Devices (‘LTDs’) - leg-hold traps laced with poison.

In 2016, Allen was forced to pull out of a presentation covering novel dingo control techniques. The controversial paper the presentation was based upon - Creating Dingo Meat Products for South East Asia - promoted the export of dog meat. In an interview prior to the cancellation of the presentation, Allen said "one man’s trash is another man’s treasure", alluding to the fact that other nations consume dog flesh, before comparing the dingo to India's "sacred cow". According to Queensland Country Life, Allen was subsequently "confronted with social media death threats and 'hate speech' by extreme animal rights activists".

Perhaps most famously, Allen was a lead coordinator and scientist of the "death-row dingoes" experiment on Pelorus Island. His father, Lee Allen, was co-scientist on this project, which stemmed from a previous study on Townshend Island. In the first media account of the experiment, Allen referred to the 1080 capsules as "time-bombs" as they were designed to remain within the body for several years (material obtained from a Right to Information request tabled with Queensland Agriculture revealed that the manufacturer did not have data for any period over 150+ days).

Where is Ben now?

Allen continues to kill dingoes. He remains employed by the University of Southern Queensland. Since these controversies, he has featured in advisory videos published by the Centre for Invasive Species Solutions. He continues to have studies detailing the killing of dingoes published in academic journals.

In a 2019 interview on one of these studies, Allen said:

"In terms of whether or not you end up with a dead dog, they are both as good as each other. Both 1080 and PAPP kills dogs".

And by "dogs", he means dingoes...

Ultimately, despite these dubious and highly unethical examples, Allen continues to work with animals. In 2019, Allen was awarded the Young Tall Poppy Award at the Queensland Museum. The same year, he gave a presentation on the Pelorus Project at the Royal Zoological Society of NSW seminar series entitled “The Dingo Dilemma”.

They sold the island, but we won’t buy their lies.

Learn more

You can learn about the infamous Pelorus Project by reading two academic articles written by Fiona Probyn-Rapsey and Rowena Lennox.

• Feral violence: the Pelorus experiment. Published in Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space in 2020.

• Colonialism and conservation: restoration, killing and tourism on Jabugay Yanooa/Pelorus Island. Published in Borderlands in 2021.

Find more at our Evidence page.

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