Dingoes on Australia’s K’gari island to be euthanised after tragic death of Canadian tourist Piper James | K’gari (Fraser Island)
The Queensland government has announced that the dingo herd linked to the death of Canadian tourist Piper James on Australia’s K’gari island will be destroyed.
An entire pack of 10 animals will be euthanized, Environment Minister Andrew Powell said on Sunday.
The group was linked to the death of 19-year-old Piper James on Monday. An autopsy released on Friday found physical evidence of suffocation and injuries consistent with dingo bites, but the “antemortem dingo bite marks” were “unlikely to cause immediate death”.
Located about 380 kilometers north of Queensland’s capital, Brisbane, the island is home to an estimated 200 dingoes, which are sacred to the Indigenous Butchulla people, who call them wongari, and are specifically mentioned on the K’gari world heritage list. K’gari was previously known as Fraser Island.
“This tragedy deeply affected the people of Queensland and touched the hearts of people around the world,” Powell said in a statement.
A spokesman for the department said rangers had spent the week closely monitoring the dingo herd involved and had observed aggressive behaviour. These were deemed “an unacceptable public safety risk.”
Powell said the dingoes “will be removed and humanely euthanized.”
“This is a difficult decision, but I believe it is the right decision in the public interest,” Powell said.
Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation secretary Christine Royan described the decision as a “culling”.
K’gari is a national park and has native title. The people of Butchulla administer the island in collaboration with the state government.
Six animals were destroyed on Saturday, but Royan said the island’s traditional owners were not consulted about the decision and were not even informed of it until Sunday, despite the island’s management plan.
“I was surprised,” he said.
“This government has no respect for First Nations people. It’s a disgrace.”
Dingo attacks have become common in recent years but fatal incidents are rare.
Baby Azaria Chamberlain was killed by a dingo near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory in 1980. Her mother, Lindy Chamberlain, was wrongfully judged for her death, as depicted in the movie Don’t Cry in the Dark.
A K’gari dingo killed 9-year-old Clinton Gage in 2001, leading to a controversial culling of the animals. Approximately 30 animals perished at a time Tagged “irrational” by the federal government and opposed by environmentalists.
The state government has since taken a number of other measures to protect people from the animals, such as fencing and warning signs, but the animals are occasionally destroyed one by one.
Butchulla and environmentalists have long blamed tourism for attacks on the island.
K’gari’s world heritage advisory committee warned last February that the island’s ecology was at risk of being “destroyed” by “overtourism”. But Powell has consistently rejected proposals to limit visitation.
Central Queensland University senior lecturer Bradley Smith said this week any loss to the dingo population, which he estimated at between 100 and 200, would be “catastrophic to their survival”.
