Elder slams gun use on dingoes

AN indigenous leader has joined conservation groups in condemning the use of guns to control Fraser Island dingoes that have been declared dangerous.

AN indigenous leader has joined conservation groups in condemning the use of guns to control Fraser Island dingoes that have been declared dangerous.

Aunty Mally Clarke, a Butchulla elder at the K'Gari campground near where the shooting occurred, is the latest person to vent anger at the methods used to manage wild dogs.

Aunty Mally said the two juvenile dingoes, known as Winkie and Inky, which rangers had declared dangerous for nipping at the feet of staff had been "camp dogs" for the past year.

One of the wild dogs has since been "humanely destroyed" but Aunty Mally believes the other, which was shot at, remains alive despite being wounded.

"I thought he might have been in a fight but when I saw that big hole in Inky's neck I thought oh God," Aunty Mally said.

"Some of the drivers that come with backpackers, they said 'that's a bullet hole there'."

She said in recent days the young dingo had been regularly swimming in salt water and suggested he was using the ocean to treat his wound.

Aunty Mally claimed the pair's crime did not warrant the punishment handed down to them, but she said rangers deserved no blame for doing their job.

She suggested the relationship indigenous people, and also those that frequent the K'Gari campsite, have with dingoes was misunderstood.

"Those dogs at the camp, they're not dangerous, they are friendly," she said.

"It's really dogs from other parts of the island that can sometimes cause trouble. Winkie and Inky would have been just playing."

Great Sandy regional manager for Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service Ross Belcher said rangers were continuing their efforts to track down the dingo.

He said it has been seen since August 6 on monitoring cameras walking and running unhindered.

Save Fraser Island Dingoes Inc spokeswoman Cheryl Bryant said shooting animals in and around the indigenous community and tourists was not only barbaric but completely irresponsible.

She said SFID believed an explanation was due the local and indigenous people.

Originally published as Elder slams gun use on dingoes