Volunteers bring cadaver dogs to search for missing backpacker

Volunteers searching for the missing backpacker have brought cadaver dogs to Byron Bay.

A team from Search Dogs Sydney at Tallow Beach in Byron Bay. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen.

Volunteers working with the family of missing backpacker Theo Hayez have brought cadaver dogs to Byron Bay in their quest for ­answers.

A group of local residents is continuing to search for the 18-year-old Belgian, almost three months after he walked out of a bar and vanished, determined to find out what happened to him.

Yesterday, two dogs from Sydney trained to detect human remains scoured the rugged terrain around Cape Byron Lighthouse after being brought in by the ­volunteers.

“There’s so much bushland around Byron and as volunteers, we’ve done our best to cover it all by foot,” volunteer Sheri D’Rosario said.

“There’s obviously been some really tricky areas where it’s either been too steep or the bush has been particularly dense.

“Just as a way of making sure that every inch of the bush has been covered, we thought the dogs might be able to come in and do some of the parts that we couldn’t.”

The dogs were from Search Dogs Sydney, itself a fledgling volunteer group.

President and canine handler Chris D’Arcy said the group had been training dogs to locate missing people for the past three years.

“They can cover roughly the same amount of ground as 30 to 40 ground searchers in the same amount of time,” Mr D’Arcy said.

The dogs were last year involved in searches for 11 people. They are yet to locate any of their targets, but the group says their efforts bring solace to desperate families. “We’re all volunteers. We don’t charge for our services,” Mr D’Arcy said.

“It’s the faces of the families of the missing people I’ve met, the hurt and anguish you see and hear from them.

“A lot of people that have got us out looking for their families, they feel helpless.

“They turn to the police. But once … the leads get fewer and fewer, the families do get desperate. They then start to run their own searches, but that can be quite dangerous.”

Mr Hayez went missing on his third night in Byron, after leaving Cheeky Monkey’s bar about 11pm on Friday, May 31.

He has been tracked to the Cape Byron area via his mobile phone. His parents travelled to Byron but have since returned to Belgium.

Ms D’Rosario said the dogs could “pick up things that we can’t”.

“They obviously use a different sense to us as well. We’ve been primarily using our eyes to scan the environment and it feels more comprehensive to have them come in and do it with their sense of smell,” she said.

NSW police previously brought in their own dogs, before calling off the ground search for Mr Hayez early last month.

A police spokesman yesterday said: “Tweed-Byron police district detectives are continuing to investigate the disappearance.”

Mr D’Arcy said the private ­organisation’s dogs “are trained in a completely different way” to police dogs.

“They can work through any contamination. They can work through any surface,” he said.

The two used yesterday — Rufus and Boof — were rescue dogs. “They’re trained to find human bones and fresh human remains,” Mr D’Arcy said.