Media Release: 17 August 2014
The latest dingo incident on Fraser Island is a poor reflection on the island’s newly repacked dingo management strategy.
It is about time the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service accepted that problems which did not exist before it took over the island’s management are its fault.
And it is about time Environment Minister Andrew Powell kept his promise to have an independent and scientific review of dingo management strategies, rather than the QPWS organised and stacked review of its own policies which was conducted by a contractor it selected and based on clearly prejudicial assumptions.
An independent review needs to be independent of the QPWS, which developed the strategy under review. A scientific review needs to be open and accountable, so that its information can be checked by other scientists and by the public, as opposed to the secretive Ecosure review which says it will never release its file of public submissions.
A good example of a proper inquiry is the Fitzgerald review of island management, conducted in the 1990s, which set a high bar for openness, public participation and credibility. It included advertised public participation, issues papers in public libraries, and a willingness to listen, rather than talk down to public participants. Significantly his report did not mention dingoes, because there were no significant dingo issues on Fraser Island at that time.
The Ecosure review was an obvious public relations exercise with no credibility and this incident is the result of its failure to lead to any significant change in management.
The island’s dingo management strategy should be a public document, however we are told it is an internal document and we are not being given access to it.
No more dingoes should be destroyed until we have credible knowledge of the population and its composition.
Destruction should be based on informed judgement of population dynamics. Alternatives should be explored before any more destructions take place.
On Fraser Island contact between dingoes and humans is inevitable and natural, not deviant.
The Fraser Island dingoes are an ancient semi-domesticate, unique in that they can self-sustain but have the residual element of domestication where they are curious and attracted to people. This has never been acknowledged or addressed in any version of the management strategy.
It should not be assumed that humans do not contribute to their own danger, especially if they are responding to fear-based information from the QPWS, which may cause them to panic and act in ways which may excite the dingoes or even frighten them into defensive actions.
Sub adults, whether part of a stable pack or displaced, will always (even in captive situations) push boundaries. This seems more likely to be the case than the “attack” claimed by the authorities. It is ridiculous to suggest that someone could be savagely attacked by three dingoes and survive. This incident was much less severe than many of the 66 domestic dog attacks recorded in the Sunshine Coast region so far this year.