Queensland government says pack linked to 19-year-old’s death pose ‘unacceptable public safety risk’ as Indigenous traditional owners say they were not consulted
The dingo pack linked to the death of Canadian tourist Piper James on Australian island K’gari will be destroyed, the Queensland government has announced.
Environment minister Andrew Powell said on Sunday that an entire pack of 10 animals would be euthanised.
The group were linked to the death of Piper James, 19, on Monday. An autopsy released on Friday found physical evidence consistent with drowning and injuries consistent with dingo bites, but “pre-mortem dingo bite marks” were “not likely to have caused immediate death”.
The island, about 380 kilometres north of the Queensland capital, Brisbane, is home to an estimated 200 dingoes, which are sacred to the Indigenous Butchulla people, who call them wongari, and are specifically mentioned in K’gari’s world heritage listing. K’gari was previously known as Fraser Island.
