Parents of Piper James visit K’gari to farewell daughter and ‘walk where she last walked’ as dingo cull continues | K’gari (Fraser Island)

The distraught parents of a backpacker believed to have drowned on a world heritage-listed sand island off the Queensland coast are visiting K’gari as part of their journey to return the remains of Piper James to Canada.

Todd and Angela James landed in Brisbane from Vancouver on Tuesday morning; this was the first stage of their emotional journey to K’gari (formerly known as Fraser Island).

The couple refused to speak to reporters waiting at the airport, but Todd expressed his sadness on social media.

“Now it’s time to go to Australia to be with Piper, to walk where she last walked and try to somehow feel the spirit of my little girl; Piper and I will return home to Canada,” he said on Facebook.

The couple will visit K’gari later this week for a traditional smoking ceremony performed by the island’s Butchulla traditional owners at the beach next to the SS Maheno shipwreck, where Piper was found after going for an early morning swim on her own in the early hours of January 19.

“This ceremony is an important and cultural protocol for us and a way to bring peace to the land, recognize its spirit and offer healing to all,” said Christine Royan, director of the Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation.

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The coroner’s preliminary evaluation, released four days after James’ death, found “physical evidence consistent with strangulation” as well as “injuries consistent with dingo bites” and said they were unlikely to be fatal bites.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the medical examiner was still “awaiting pathology results that would help determine Piper James’ cause of death”; this process was expected to take several weeks.

Regardless, nine days ago Queensland’s environment minister Andrew Powell said a herd of 10 animals would be euthanized; This has led dingo experts to warn of an “extinction vortex” for Australia’s only native canids on the island, where they have likely roamed for thousands of years.

Dingo geneticist Dr. from the University of New South Wales. Kylie Cairns said the K’gari dingo population, with fewer than 200 isolated individuals, currently had low genetic diversity and high levels of inbreeding.

But James’ mother Angela told the national broadcaster that both parents believed it. Killing dingoes “The last thing Piper wants”.

But a department spokesman said that after a week of closely monitoring this herd and observing aggressive behavior, rangers deemed the canids an “unacceptable public safety risk”.

The tragedy is the latest in a series of increasingly aggressive encounters between dingoes and tourists in K’gari and the first death since nine-year-old Clinton Gage was killed by two dingoes in 2001 and 32 dingoes were subsequently culled.

A spokesperson for Queensland’s environment department said eight dingoes were “humanely euthanized” on Tuesday afternoon.

“The operation is ongoing and a dingo is out,” the spokesman said.

Traditional owners said they were not consulted and were not involved in the decision to euthanize the dingoes, which they call wongari and consider sacred.

AAP contributed to this report