Dingo Hunter

Laurie Corbett was born in Castlemaine Victoria in 1941 and spent much of his early life catching wildlife to supplement the family diet and thus developed an understanding and love of the bush and its fauna. He joined the CSIRO Division of Wildlife Research to study dingoes and their prey in central Australia 1968-75 and later 1980-96 in Kakadu National Park. Intervening those years he studied Scottish wildcats and feral cats in Aberdeenshire and the Outer Hebrides. At that time he regularly returned home for Christmas where en route he discovered dingoes in Thailand and other South-east Asian countries; and subsequently made regular visits to study them resulting in a Whitley Award for his 1995 book The Dingo in Australia and Asia. In 1997 he led ecological surveys at Bradshaw Field Training Area and at Christmas Island and concurrently was a member of IUCN s Canid Specialist Group with field work in Indonesia. In 2007 he formed his own consulting company to provide dingo management advice at mine sites in deserts throughout Australia. Throughout this journey he met an incredible array of characters and experienced many unusual events most pleasant but others not so. This illustrated narrative provides research data in conjunction with the day-to-day joy frustration and danger associated with working in outback Australia. Similarly in relatively isolated regions of Thailand Laos and Burma where the English language is not spoken and unintentional non-compliance with local customs can have dangerous outcomes.