A dingo which attacked a tourist on Queensland’s Fraser Island last week has been put down by the authorities.
The incident saw the wild dog bite the woman several times as she was walking along the beach at Eurong with her boyfriend.
“At first the couple thought the dingo was being playful but it then became aggressive and bit the woman four times, firstly on the back of the leg, just behind her right knee, and then three times on her left leg,” Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service Sunshine and Fraser Coast Principal Ranger, Ross Belcher, told the Fraser Coast Chronicle. “The woman’s companion then kept the dingo at a distance by placing himself between her and the animal and waving his thong at it until a passer-by in a 4WD saw what was happening and rendered assistance.”
The couple was able to clearly identify the dingo by its tag and the animal had a history of concerning behaviour which had been escalating in recent days and had seen it menace several other groups.
There have reportedly been eight ‘Code E’ incidents of high-risk behaviour involving dingoes on Fraser Island so far this year, and this particular dingo had been involved in four of them.
“Rangers have been conducting extended patrols in the Eurong area in response to the concerning behaviour exhibited by this animal and others from the same pack,” Mr Belcher told the Fraser Coast Chronicle. “Euthanasia is a last resort but the safety of visitors to Fraser Island must come first.”
The concern here is that you need to remain near a vehicle so that you don’t put yourself in the path of the dingos. We saw fishermen feeding dingos fish off the ends of there rods. Some people can’t abide by rules.
People forget that a dingo is a wild animal and because it looks like a dog they sometimes tend to get closer to the dingo than is safe.Holiday makers must learn to keep a reasonable distance between themselves and a dingo as it is an unpredictable animal.