In this aerial image from video, a dingo walks on the beach in Kagari, formerly known as Fraser Island, Australia, on Monday, July 17, 2023.
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In this aerial image from video, a dingo walks on the beach in Kagari, formerly known as Fraser Island, Australia, on Monday, July 17, 2023.
AP
CANBERRA, Australia – Wildlife authorities have killed the leader of a pack of dingoes that attacked a jogger on a popular Australian tourist island in a ferocious attack that one rescuer said could have been fatal.
Sarah Peet, 23, was attacked by three or four local Australian dogs on Monday as she walked along a beach in Kagari, Queensland, the world’s largest sand island formerly known as Fraser Island.
The Brisbane resident was flown by helicopter to a mainland hospital in stable condition. The Health Ministry declined to provide an update on her condition on Thursday, citing patient confidentiality.
Queensland Parks and Wildlife said the leader of the herd was caught and humanely killed by wildlife rangers on Wednesday.
“The euthanasia of high-risk dingoes is always a last resort and the difficult decision made by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Authority was supported by the island’s traditional owners, the Pochola people,” the service’s statement read.
The dingo was the second on the island in recent weeks to be killed for its biting and threatening behaviour. Authorities blame the dingoes’ increasing courage on tourists who ignore the rules by feeding them or encouraging them to get close in order to post pictures on social media.
Cautious little dingoes shunned humans when pandemic travel restrictions were first eased in late 2021. But their dangerous human interactions are increasingly encouraged by tourists as visitor numbers rise.
Peet deliberately discourages Dingo from approaching her. But visitors to the World Heritage-listed Great Sandy National Park have been warned not to run or run outside the fenced areas because of the risk of being chased by dingoes.
The dingo forced Peete to surf, using the same hunting strategy that rangers say they use against large prey like kangaroos and wallabies.
Tourists Shane and Sarah Moffat were driving along the beach in their SUV when they saw Pete being attacked.
“We saw two dingoes hanging out by her side,” Shane Moffat told Nine News TV.
“She was walking toward me with her hand yelling, ‘Help me, help me,’” Moffat said. “I could see the fear in her face, because she wasn’t feeling well.”
He ran to Pete, Moffat said, and forced himself between her and the group leader. Moffat bloodied his fingers on the dingo’s fangs as he punched him.
Moffat said Pitt’s injuries included a piece of meat missing from her right upper arm and bite marks on her legs.
He suspected that she would have survived if he had arrived at the scene later.
The group leader was one of only three dingoes on the island to be fitted with tracking collars due to their extremely dangerous behaviour.
When he was hit with a collar in April, authorities said, he was about two years old and weighed 17 kilograms (37 lb), which is heavy for a dingo, and indicated he had been fed by humans.
The dingo was killed by authorities in June after separate attacks on a 7-year-old boy and a 42-year-old French woman, the first animal destroyed on the island since 2019.
The Dingo was the offspring of a collared mother, the Rangers said, who taught her young their dangerous ways.
K’gari is home to some of Australia’s purest dingoes because local dogs have long been banned. Dingoes are a protected species and authorities are studying how they can coexist more safely with humans on the island.
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