Fraser Dingoes, 8/1/11

AMONG Fraser Island's 100 or so permanent residents, stories vary about the circumstances leading to the killing of a nine-year-old Brisbane boy, Clinton Gage, by two dingoes near Waddy Point, on the island's northern tip, on April 30, 2001.

Some say Clinton and his younger brother Dylan (who was bitten but survived) were seen by other campers taunting and throwing things at the animals; others believe an earlier severe bushfire wiped out food sources and created a "dangerous mood" among two near-starving dingo packs competing for scraps in the area where Clinton was killed.

Whatever the cause, the tragedy was the catalyst for all that followed. According to a dingo researcher, Dr Ian Gunn, the state government's harsh treatment of the island's dwindling dog packs has brought them to the edge of extinction.

Advertisement: Story continues below "The detailed studies and records collected by Jennifer Parkhurst have exposed the dingoes' plight," the Monash University vet, who heads the National Dingo Preservation and Recovery Program, said.

"Things like starvation, poor survival of pups, inhumane treatment of dogs through tagging and culling methods, and hassling by visitors must be addressed immediately to save these animals from impending extinction."

The Queensland Department of Environmental Resource Management does not accept the dingoes are starving. Its website says they have enough natural food sources, but are "naturally lean" and subject to seasonal and pack-status weight variations.

To support this, the site displays four photographs of what it says is the same female juvenile - identified by its ear tag as "purple/yellow/yellow"- observed over 11 months. In the first photo the dingo appears to be starving; the others show a dated progression as it "regained weight quickly".

But a Fraser Island resident, Judi Daniel, says the department item shows three different dingoes.

"It's a complete concoction," the retired journalist said at her home in the village of Eurong. "I took the first photo of the starving female, which died soon afterwards in a fight with other dingoes, and it ended up on various websites.

''Without my permission, DERM hooked it off the net and used it as part of its propaganda beat-up."

Daniel said the next two photos in the department series did show the "purple/yellow/yellow" dingo, but the last photo was another ring-in with a different-coloured ear tag.

Terry Harper, the general manager of the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, admitted the first photo in the series was taken by Daniel, but insisted only one dingo is shown: "Although it lost its ear tag [at some stage] … all the photos are of the same animal."

Daniel says rumours persist that rangers are under instruction to secretly feed dingoes to avoid bad publicity over them starving.

"The crazy thing about all this is that dingoes are very social animals,'' she said. ''They were camp dogs with the island's Aborigines for thousands of years, and they actually like people.

''Then, suddenly, they're tagged, demonised, brutalised and confronted daily by tourists who shriek and scream at the sight of them. And they just don't understand why." Sydney Morning Herald, Jan 8. 2011