A 23-year-old woman is recovering in hospital after she was mauled by several dingoes while jogging on K'gari -- once known as Fraser Island -- on Monday.
Queensland's environment minister Leanne Linard visited the scene of the attack on Wednesday, later telling AFP she does not support calls for a cull.
"Dingoes are protected under the Nature Conservation Act," she said. "They are an important part of the ecology of K'gari."
She described the population of around 200 dingoes -- Australia's only native canine -- as "sustainable" and stressed the need for visitors to be educated about risks and behaviour.
K'gari is famed for its beautiful coastal scenery and was listed by UNESCO in 1992.
But a series of attacks, including last month when a 10-year-old boy was dragged underwater by a dingo, have put a spotlight on visitor safety.
Professor Mike Letnic, from the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of New South Wales, said managing dingoes on K'gari is "really difficult".
In most other habitats, he said, dingoes are "more cautious" around humans but on K'gari they are "not scared by people, they see people as a resource for food".
"If the animals are known to be dangerous, I don't think there's a huge problem in removing those animals, but the dingoes are part of the attraction, so it doesn't work to cull the attraction," he told AFP.
"We need to manage the dingoes and the people -- but the people are the easy ones."
Bradley Smith, an expert in human-animal interaction, told AFP that most dingo attacks on K'gari were due to visitors not following guidelines.
Visitors are warned not to feed the animals, to run away from them, and to always walk in groups.
Smith said dingoes' dog-like appearance and size -- a little over knee-high -- means "people do not have a natural fear of them as they perhaps should".
"What is most upsetting to me as a dingo behaviourist and conservationist, is that animals are killed because of the actions of people," he said.
"We blame the dingoes for being dingoes, and none of the responsibility falls onto us."
Related Links
Darwin Today At TerraDaily.com
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
| Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters |
