Canadian backpacker Piper James, 19, died “as a result of drowning” following a dingo attack in Australia, according to the coroner’s findings.
Her body was found in January on a beach on K’gari, a World Heritage sand island off Queensland, close to the Maheno shipwreck. Police said her body was surrounded by a pack of dingoes, prompting an investigation into the circumstances of her death.
“Piper died as a result of drowning in the setting of multiple injuries, due to, or as a consequence of a dingo attack,” a spokesperson for the Queensland coroner’s court said.
“The investigation into Piper’s death is ongoing, and no further information can be provided at this time.”
Earlier, Queensland authorities had euthanised eight of the ten dingoes that had surrounded James’s body on K’gari – formerly known as Fraser Island – following her death. Officials had said the animals were part of a pack believed to have surrounded her body and had shown aggressive behaviour.
The move angered traditional owners and worried wildlife experts, while a preliminary autopsy had found evidence “consistent with drowning”, along with injuries consistent with dingo bites.
“Pre-mortem dingo bite marks are not likely to have caused immediate death. There are extensive post-mortem dingo bite marks. There is no evidence that any other person was involved,” the preliminary autopsy found.
Dingoes – known as wongari to the Indigenous Butchulla people – are sacred and specifically recognised in K’gari’s World Heritage listing. There are estimated to be around 70 to 200 dingoes on K’gari, and they are protected under the law.
The teenager had been living and working on K’gari for six weeks, employed as a housekeeper at a backpacker campsite alongside a close friend from her hometown in British Columbia.
“It breaks my heart we couldn’t be there to save her,” the teen’s mother Angela James told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, after the coroner’s findings.
“It hurts my heart to think she was screaming for me,” her father Todd James said.
“It’s hard to imagine what our baby went through.”
In the days after her death, James’s parents remembered her as a “kind spirit” and an “empathetic” person.
“Our hearts are shattered as we share the tragic loss of our beautiful daughter Piper,” Todd James, the teen’s father said on social media.
“We will always remember her infectious laugh and her kind spirit. I admired her strength and determination to go after her dreams.”
Her mother, Angela James remembered her as “so special”. “She was just so precious. She was so empathetic. Always worried about other people,” she told The Canadian Press.
The Queensland Government gave the order to kill a family of Dingoes because they were found standing near Piper James. The report says that her death was most likely caused by drowning . The population of Dingoes is fragile with only an estimated 100-200
— Fleur Shack (@FleurFleurshack) January 29, 2026
( Animals Austrlia) pic.twitter.com/GhpARvxA6X
Her daughter was relishing her time in Australia and had fallen in love with K’gari, she said.
“She was very adventurous. She loved motocross. She loved camping, she loved swimming, and she loved surfing. She wanted to learn to surf,” she added.
Before travelling overseas, the teenager had spent two summers working with British Columbia’s wildfire services, something her father said she took immense pride in.
The K’fari island is home to about 150 human inhabitants but attracts roughly 400,000 tourists a year. Queensland deputy premier Jarrod Bleijie said James’s death was horrific but refused to cap the number of tourists to the island. Activists have said that overtourism is possibly one of the reasons for aggressive dingo behaviour.
“Our thoughts and prayers and feelings are all for the family,” Mr Bleijie said. “Fraser Island is the most amazing destination in the world and absolutely we’ll keep encouraging people to go there.”
He, however, said that educating visitors about the dangers posed by dingoes was important and added that “we’re certainly not putting caps on tourists to go to Fraser Island”.
The last reported fatal dingo attack on K’gari was in 2001, when nine-year-old Clinton Gage fell near a campsite and was attacked, prompting authorities to cull about 30 dingoes.
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