Sadly, a recent wongari (dingo) attack to K’gari visitor, 23-year-old Sarah Peet, an urban designer with Moreton Bay Council, resulted not only in ~30 bites and lacerations on her arms, legs, and torso but the euthanasia of the lead wongari (CC Green) after the attack. This was the second wongari euthanised on K’gari for dangerous behaviour this year.

The Queensland Government and the Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation (BAC) have invested heavily in promoting the messages of Dingo-Safe and Wongari-Wise. Wongari are a culturally significant species to the Butchulla people.

If you search ‘K’gari safety’ on the internet, the top two answers are on the Department of Environment and Science’s website: visiting safely and be dingo safe! While the former page provides no wongari (dingo) safety information, it does link to two more pages – ‘staying safe ‘and ‘before you visit’ that provide a wealth of advice on wongari (dingo) safety. The key messages are:

• Never feed wongari (dingoes).
• Always stay within arm’s reach of children, even small teenagers.
• Walk in groups and carry a stick.
• Do not run. Running or jogging can trigger a negative wongari (dingo) interaction.
• Camp in fenced areas when possible.
• Lock up food stores and iceboxes (even on a boat).
• Never store food or food containers in tents.
• Secure all rubbish, fish, and bait.

Visitors to K’gari interacting with wongari (dingo) including approaching or feeding an animal, not only risk hefty on the spot fines of $2,135 per offence (up to a maximum of $10,676), but also habituating animals – reducing their natural fear or wariness of humans.

What does habitation mean? With repeated human interactions, wongari (dingoes) can lose their wariness of humans, will ignore threats, and may approach people in the future. Habituated wongari (dingoes) may learn to associate access to food with people and act aggressively if food is not forthcoming. Pups of habituated wongari (dingoes) may not learn how to hunt properly, and pack members may also learn habituated behaviours. Habituation can be a death sentence for a wongari (dingo) on K’gari.

With all this information available to her, why did Sarah Peet, an intelligent young woman, choose to leave the safety of the newly installed Orchid Beach dingo fence to go off jogging, alone, on K’gari?

Stories in the media may hold some of the answers. Following the incident, wongari (dingoes) were frequently referred to by reporters as dogs. Wongari (dingoes) are Australia’s largest land predator. Genetically they are somewhere between a wolf and a modern dog. Although visually like a dog, wongari (dingoes) are not domesticated pets. They fulfil the same important, top-level predator role in the food web as lions in Africa, tigers in India, grizzly and polar bears in North America and crocodiles and great white sharks here in Australia.

Ask yourself the question – would you put your small child over the fence in a zoo with any one of these animals for a picture? The answer would undoubtedly be no. We all know that’s stupid. Yet parents and visitors to K’gari continue to flout the rules, putting themselves, their families and wongari (dingo) at risk.

K’gari’s accessibility may also be part of the problem. Brisbane to the Inskip Point barge is only 255 km, taking only 3 hours followed by a barge crossing of only 10 minutes. Is the World Heritage-listed island a victim of its own proximity and accessibility to the mainland? Visitors may feel that K’gari’s beaches are just an extension of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. They are not. K’gari is a remote area where people need to take responsibility for their own safety.

Then there are the visitors themselves, with no end of theories why they choose to ignore available information and signage. There’s optimism bias (initially described by Weinstein in 1980) that even in the face of clear evidence that there are dangers or reasons for pessimism, people opt for optimism, dismissing danger over the belief that individually they will be more successful than the average population (beating the odds). There’s also research into why people ignore signage including danger perception and familiarisation, potential of enforcement/compliance, risk-taking and social pressures (social norms). Research would seem to suggest that more signage is not the answer.

The take-home messages – K’gari and wongari should both be kept wild. If you plan to visit, you need to be responsible 24/7 for your own and your family’s safety. Follow the rules, stay dingo-safe/wongari-wise and you’ll have a great time. If not, then you need to be held accountable for your behaviour. Habituating wongari (dingoes) is a deadly serious matter! Remember – give wongari (dingo) space, K’gari is their place!

Article contributed by Sue Sargent, FINIA – the Natural Integrity Alliance for K’gari