Killer dingoes culled
2001-05-06 09:23
Brisbane - Twenty-eight dingoes were shot
dead by late Saturday in a cull on an Australian island resort
after two wild dogs killed a nine-year old boy.
The cull was expected to be wound down and authorities
said they were now looking at long-term management of the risk
posed to humans by dingoes on Fraser Island.
Clinton Gage was mauled to death by at least two dogs near
the remote Waddy Point camp site on the island off Queensland
state on Monday.
His seven-year old brother received extensive bites.
A British backpacker was bitten by a dingo on Thursday
while walking with another woman through bushland on Fraser
Island.
"All of a sudden we heard screaming, so I jumped
up, ran over there, (and) there was this dingo, running after
her, grabbing hold of her butt," an unidentified witness told
Nine Network television.
The Queensland government confirmed the incident but said neither woman was believed to have needed medical treatment.
"One was nipped on the upper leg and the other was scratched," a spokesperson for Queensland Environment Minister Dean Wells told Reuters. "The dog was destroyed today," she said.
An Australian court late on Friday rejected an application
by an Aboriginal elder from Fraser Island to halt the cull.
The Ngulungbara people, who call the dingo "wangari", refer
to the wild dogs as brothers in nature and fellow hunters.
But the Federal Court said the state government had a right
to protect public safety.
The world heritage-listed Fraser Island, which is about 260km north of Brisbane, was home to about 160
dingoes. They were considered the purest strain of dingoes in
Australia and a protected species.
They share the world's largest sand island with an annual
population of 300 000 tourists, who have often been blamed for
feeding the dogs and encouraging human contact.
Conservationists have criticised the state government for
not implementing a management strategy for rogue dingoes after
a number of tourists were bitten in 1999.
- Reuters