Fraser Dingoes 18/1/11

Dingoes

The dingo that attacked a Korean tourist on Fraser Island at the weekend will be killed if it can be identified. The incident early on Sunday morning saw the 41-year-old tourist bitten on the leg, hand and forearm by a dingo on 75 Mile Beach at Eurong. The woman and her friend had been surrounded by a pack of five dingoes when one lunged forward, attacking her. DERM's Regional Manager Ross Belcher said the behaviour of the dingo had posed a clear threat to the safety of visitors and the local community. “If the dingo is positively identified, it will have to be put down to protect public safety,” he said. “Through the introduction of the Dingo Management Strategy the number of dingoes having to be destroyed as a result of dangerous behaviour has decreased from as many as 14 in 2002 to five in 2010. “This incident serves as an ongoing reminder of the unpredictable and dangerous nature of dingoes on Fraser. They are wild animals and need to be treated as such.”

As rangers tried to identify the dingo yesterday politicians and wildlife lobby groups seized on the incident to attack DERM's current dingo management policy. State Member for Hervey Bay Ted Sorensen said Fraser Island was a major tourist attraction and people had the right to be safe from these attacks. “DERM's dingo strategy has never been peer-reviewed and problems identified by the island's visitors and residents have simply been ignored,” he said. Malcom Kilpatrick from Save Fraser Island Dingoes said the bottom line was that the management strategy “had some good points, but it did have problems and they needed to be fixed now”. “If it was the alpha male leader of the pack that attacked the tourist and it is chased down and shot you can just about say goodbye to the other members of the pack because they won't survive without their leader. “That means five dingoes may die because of this one incident and that is a tragedy,” Mr Kilpatrick said. *Fraser Coast Chronicle