Dingo experts have warned that the Queensland government’s decision to kill a pack of 10 dingoes linked to the death of Canadian tourist Piper James on K’gari (formerly Fraser Island) could push the island’s isolated population towards extinction. The government has confirmed it has already killed six of the pack seen near the 19-year-old’s body, a move that has angered the island’s traditional owners, who say they were not consulted.
Dr Kylie Cairns, a dingo genetics expert at the University of New South Wales, said she was “disheartened, disappointed and frustrated” by the decision, adding that scientific evidence on the population’s low genetic diversity and high inbreeding was not being used. With only 70 to 200 dingoes on the island, removing 10 is “quite significant” and could push them into an “extinction vortex”, she said.
The Queensland coroner is yet to determine the cause of death, but a preliminary autopsy found physical evidence consistent with drowning and injuries consistent with dingo bites, including pre-mortem bite marks not likely to have caused immediate death. James had gone for an early morning swim alone on 19 January and was found surrounded by a dingo pack near the Maheno shipwreck.
Piper’s mother, Angela, told the ABC that killing the dingoes “is the last thing Piper would want”, while her father, Todd, said he didn’t think she would support killing them “because of a mistake that she made”. However, he added that “for the safety of the island … maybe that pack needed to be euthanised, but not because of Piper, but because of the way they’ve been behaving”.
Dr Bradley Smith, an expert on dingo-human conflict at Central Queensland University, called the cull a “kneejerk reaction” and “dumb management”, saying it “gets cheap political points and makes people feel better, but culling never fixes an underlying problem”. He stressed that “this is a people problem” and that changing human behaviour is key. The Queensland government has defended the decision, citing further “aggressive behaviour” from the pack since the tragedy.
