Dumb dingo decisions not worth social media cred

Why do Island visitors put themselves and their children in danger for a photo?

WARNING: Getting close to a dingo on Fraser Island is just not worth it. Picture: Kingfisher Bay Resort

PEOPLE can be unbelievably stupid, can't they?

I'm not talking about all of you, of course, but if you've visited Fraser Island recently and encouraged your child or children to approach wild dingoes then yes, I'm looking squarely at you.

There is never a good reason for the average person - let alone a child - to approach a wild animal, but the mind boggles even further when you read the reports that some parents have been not just allowing, but actually encouraging, their kids to approach wild dingoes to get a photograph taken near the animals, or to try to pat them.

Are you kidding?

I don't encourage or allow my young kids to approach even a domestic dog they don't know, let alone a wild dingo who doesn't know where its next meal is coming from. Call it helicopter parenting if you want to; I call it good sense. You don't know the animal, you don't know how it will react. Respect its space and leave it alone. This rule applies a thousand-fold when you're talking about an undomesticated animal.

I would really hope people doing such blatantly risky and idiotic things as chasing a dingo selfie are in the minority, but really, even one such fool is one too many.

Not only are you putting your children, and by extension yourself, into very real danger, but you are also endangering the lives of the dingoes who will ultimately pay the penalty for acting on their natural instincts.

I hope the "likes" on social media will be worth it.