Australia kills dingoes linked to Canadian woman’s death, sparking backlash

Australian authorities have provoked a violent reaction by killing a group of dingoes linked to the death of a young Canadian woman on an island in the east of the country.

The Queensland government said six wild dogs were put down after backpacker Piper James, 19, The body was found on January 19. on a beach on the island of K’gari, declared a World Heritage Site.

The euthanasia program has sparked debate over how to manage the local population of dingoes, a sand-coloured canine believed to have first arrived in Australia between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago.

An autopsy performed on James’ body found evidence “consistent with drowning,” but also detected injuries consistent with dingo bites. Police said her body had been discovered 90 minutes after she went for a morning swim.

“Pre-mortem dingo bite marks are not likely to have caused immediate death,” a Queensland Coroner’s Court spokesperson said.

The coroner’s investigation into the cause of death was expected to last several weeks.

In response, the Queensland government said a pack of 10 dingoes involved would be euthanized after rangers had observed some “aggressive behaviour”.

Six of the dingoes had already been euthanized, state Environment Minister Andrew Powell told reporters on Sunday.

“Obviously the operation will continue,” he said.

The traditional owners of K’gari, the Butchulla people, said the state’s failure to consult with them before culling the dingoes (or wongari in their language) was “unexpected and disappointing”.

“Once again, it appears as if economic priorities are putting the voices of people and traditional owners first, which is frustrating and difficult to accept,” the Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation said in a statement to Australian media this week.

“They’re just being wild animals.”

Wildlife experts said killing the animals was the wrong response and could threaten the island’s dingo population, estimated at only 70 to 200 animals.

Given their small numbers, killing a herd of 10 animals would harm the genetic diversity of the population, said Mathew Crowther, a professor of quantitative conservation biology at the University of Sydney.

“There is no moral from the dingoes’ point of view. They are just wild animals, they do wild things,” Crowther told News.

Dingoes tend to lose their fear of people when interacting with tourists, some of whom defy advice not to feed the animals.

“That’s the worst thing you can do to a wild animal,” Crowther said.

“They just associate humans with food, and if you don’t give them food, well, you’re food, that’s basically how it is.”

Dingoes are wild, predatory animals and should be treated with respect, said Bill Bateman, associate professor at Curtin University’s School of Biological and Molecular Sciences.

Canines are more likely to attack children or people who are alone, and can become active when people turn their backs to them or run, he said.

“These are important animals and therefore we need to change the way we treat them, otherwise we will continue to react to these attacks and reduce the dingo population,” Bateman told News.

Wildlife managers, rangers, indigenous people and tourism operators must work together so that humans and dingoes can coexist on the island, he said.

Todd James, Piper’s father, described on social media how his family’s hearts were “broken” by her death.

News of the dingoes’ euthanasia was “heartbreaking”, he told Australian media, adding however that he recognized it may be necessary for safety reasons due to the behavior of the pack.

Todd James previously said that a “smoke ceremony” would be held for his daughter in Australia and that the family planned to attend, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Local mayor George Seymour told 9News the last fatal dingo attack on the island was 25 years ago and there had been “an escalation of aggressive dingo activity” in recent years.

“A big part of what (the rangers) do is try to separate the dingoes from the humans, but we still have this dingo situation, and in some ways it’s inevitable that there will be a death, given the number of bites and attacks that are happening over the years,” Seymour told 9News.

The government’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism issued an alert last month, saying “increased dingo activity has been recorded at several locations along the eastern beach” in K’gari.

Three years ago, a pack of dingoes mauled a 23-year-old jogger in an attack that police said was near-fatal. The dogs had pushed the woman into the waves before a tourist came to her rescue and chased away the dingoes. Police said the man had saved his life.

In 2023, two Australian women were fined about $1,500 for taking selfies and videos of themselves posing with dingoes on the island.