Dingoes kill nine-year-old

2001-04-30 11:20

Sydney - A nine-year-old boy was mauled to death by wild dogs and a seven-year-old friend badly bitten on Monday in an attack that had Australians baying for Queensland's popular Fraser Island to be rid of all dingoes.

The boys were taking an early morning walk near their campsite when they were set upon by a pair of dingoes.

The younger boy ran to the camp for help but it came too late to save his companion.

Police said a marksman had killed both dogs and a coroner had gone to the island to prepare a report.

Inspector Pat Ryan said a male and female dingo were destroyed and a forensic examination will be conducted on the animals.

"We are conducting tests to see if these two dogs were the ones responsible," Ryan told ABC Radio.

"They were destroyed in the vicinity of where the attack took place this morning and we believe they were the most likely animals responsible for this attack."

The island was sealed off by police to prevent television cameramen and photographers from gaining access to the scene before investigations had finished.

There is a hue and cry to kill all the estimated 160 that roam Fraser Island scavenging for food from the 300 000 tourists that take the ferry trip there from Hervey Bay every year.

But John Sinclair, who has campaigned to conserve the last pack of full-breed dingoes in Australia, spoke out against a cull.

"The public will demand blood, " he said. "I think it's just incredibly unfortunate that it got to this and that this can be our only response."

Sinclair said 30 to 40 dingoes had been destroyed on Fraser Island over the last 10 years after tourists complained that certain animals were particularly aggressive.

Fraser Island ranger Keith Hamlyn blamed tourists, especially foreign backpackers, for encouraging the interaction of feral animals with people.

"It upsets the balance of nature," Hamlyn told Australia's AAP news agency. "Animals that are fed other than their natural diet may get dangerous when they get hungry and want more".

"They are supposed to be regarded as wild animals but the backpackers, as much as they have been told to leave the dingoes alone, keep on feeding them," Cathedral Beach Resort owner Norma Hannant said.

"Normal family people abide by our rules but the international tourist doesn't and that's the whole problem. They feed them bread, scraps, anything to get close enough to photograph."

Hannant said holidaymakers are warned not to feed the dingoes on arrival at the world heritage-listed island, where up to 20 people have been attacked in the past six years.

"The problem is that people are interacting too much with the dingoes," she said.

"It had to happen, there is no doubt about it. We are just going to have more culling of dingoes or else we let them kill children. They are vicious things.

"Wild animals can smell fright in human beings and the dingoes would've smelt the fright and it would make them more aggressive," Hannant added.

Dingoes were at the centre of one of Australia's most controversial trials when Lindy Chamberlain was convicted for murdering her nine week-old daughter Azaria in 1980.

It took her eight years to prove she was innocent and that her baby had been taken by a dingo from a campsite near Ayers Rock. - Sapa-AFP/DPA

- SAPA