Will killing dingoes on Australia\u2019s K\u2019gari Island make visitors safer? These experts say it\u2019s unlikely.<\/b>
\nAfter the tragic death of Canadian backpacker Piper James on K\u2019gari (Fraser Island) on January 19, a coroner found the 19-year-old had been bitten by dingoes while she was still alive, but the most likely cause of death was drowning.
Days later, the Queensland government announced it would cull the entire pack of ten dingoes seen near where Piper\u2019s body was found. Most of those animals have now been killed.
Authorities justified the targeted cull on \u201cpublic safety\u201d grounds while also signaling a strong desire to keep tourism moving. Queensland Tourism Minister Andrew Powell reassured tourism operators \u201cthe island is open\u201d and urged people to continue to visit.
The cull took place without the knowledge or approval of the Butchulla people, the Traditional Owners of K\u2019Gari. James\u2019 parents also publicly opposed a cull, saying it was \u201cthe last thing\u201d their nature-loving daughter would have wanted. There has been backlash from scientific experts, as well as the public.
So, does killing dingoes actually make K\u2019gari safer for people?The perfect storm
K\u2019gari\u2019s dingoes (called Wongari by the Butchulla) are a population of high conservation and cultural value on this World Heritage\u2013listed sand island. Estimates put their numbers at between 70 and 200.
Huge visitor numbers (about 450,000 per year) to the roughly 1,600 square kilometer island mean dingoes and humans share the same beaches and come into contact in ways they generally don\u2019t on the mainland. Most encounters are harmless, even enjoyable. Less than 1% of visitors experience a negative interaction, and many tourists visit the island specifically to see the dingoes.
Of course, risk increases when dingoes and people are in close proximity. Dingoes are often deliberately or carelessly rewarded with food scraps or find rubbish, which encourages loitering.
Most injuries caused by dingoes are minor, such as nips, bites, and scratches. Serious attacks by dingoes are rare on K\u2019gari and the mainland. Children are most vulnerable given their smaller size.
The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service has consistently worked to reduce incidents. Their \u201cBe dingo safe\u201d campaign includes education, signs, fenced areas, and even \u201cdingo sticks\u201d to deter the animals from approaching. But too often these safety warnings are not heeded. People feed dingoes or leave food in their tents or bags, come too close to dingoes, and let kids roam unsupervised.
For an apex predator, dingoes are relatively small and dog-like. To many visitors, they don\u2019t look especially dangerous, and people forget dingoes are wild predators.Decades of lethal control
Authorities have long relied on lethal control of dingoes on K\u2019gari. Between 2001 and 2013, 110 dingoes were killed. In 2001, after the death of nine-year-old Clinton Gage, 28 were immediately killed. In a typical year, one to two are killed.
Removing up to ten dingoes carries serious costs for a small island population. Genetically, the K\u2019gari population has low diversity and an effective population size of about 25 (meaning only about 25 animals are effectively passing genes on, even though more dingoes exist). Studies have found inbreeding, genetic isolation, and declining genetic variation in K\u2019gari dingoes over the past two decades.
High levels of inbreeding may lead to physical deformities, reduced breeding success, and an increased risk of local extinction. On an island, there is limited scope for \u201cnew\u201d dingoes and their genes to arrive, so every avoidable death is important.
That is why our 2025 population viability analysis was sobering. We found if the number of dingo deaths stays close to natural levels, the population could remain stable. But extra deaths due to mass culls or disease outbreaks expose the animals to higher extinction risk. This makes it more likely the island\u2019s dingoes could die out. In the highest-risk scenarios we modelled (that includes several mass culling events), the risk of extinction becomes substantial in about 50 years. Survival can fall close to zero by 100 years.Culling rarely solves safety problems
Records of dingo incidents on K\u2019gari offer little evidence that killing dingoes delivers lasting safety. Our analysis of the \u201chighest severity\u201d incidents reported found the island had an average of 10.7 reports a year from 2001 to 2015. There was no clear downward trend in incidents, even though more than 110 dingoes were destroyed in that period.
What we did find was a predictable seasonal pattern. About 40% of serious incidents took place during breeding season (March to May) and 30% during whelping (June to August). These are periods when dingoes are more active and social dynamics intensify. During breeding, dingoes (especially younger males) may range more widely and test boundaries. During whelping, adults can become more vigilant and take greater foraging risks to meet the demands of pups.
The chance of serious incidents rose and fell with dingo life history and behavior, as well as what people did around them. Incidents are not explained by visitor numbers alone.
When a dingo approaches people or loiters near them, they can be labelled as \u201cproblematic\u201d and are more likely to be culled. But these behaviors aren\u2019t abnormal in a wildlife tourism setting. They are predictable responses to people, food, and opportunity. Younger males are often the most persistent around people but become less exploratory as they mature or disperse.A people problem, not a dingo problem
K\u2019gari\u2019s dingoes are doing what wild predators do, just as sharks and crocodiles do in Australia\u2019s oceans and rivers.
Our safety depends on how we behave in wild places. To reduce risky encounters with wildlife, secure your food and waste, keep your kids close, don\u2019t venture out alone, respect park guidelines, and stop giving rewards such as food. Killing dingoes won\u2019t make K\u2019gari safer. Changing human behavior and attitudes will.
Bradley P. Smith, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, CQUniversity Australia and Kylie M. Cairns, Research Fellow in Canid and Wildlife Genomics, UNSW Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.<\/p>\n