The distraught parents of a backpacker believed to have drowned on a world heritage-listed sand island off the Queensland coast are visiting K’gari as part of their journey to return the remains of Piper James to Canada.
Todd and Angela James touched down in Brisbane from Vancouver on Tuesday morning – the first stage of their emotional pilgrimage to K’gari (formerly known as Fraser Island).
The couple declined to speak to press waiting at the airport, though Todd has expressed his grief on social media.
“It is now time to go to Australia to be with Piper, walk where she last walked, and try to feel the spirit of my baby girl in some way – we will return with Piper back home to Canada,” he posted on Facebook.
The couple will visit K’gari for a traditional smoking ceremony conducted by the island’s Butchulla traditional owners later this week on the beach near the SS Maheno wreck where Piper was found in the early hours of 19 January after she went for an early morning solo swim.
“This ceremony is important and cultural protocol for us and a way to bring calm to the land, acknowledge her spirit and offer the healing to all,” the Butchulla Aboriginal Corporation director Christine Royan said.
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A coroner’s preliminary assessment, released four days after James’s death, found “physical evidence consistent with drowning” as well as “injuries consistent with dingo bites”, noting these were unlikely to have been fatal bites.
As of Tuesday afternoon that coroner was still “awaiting pathology results to further assist in determining the cause of death of Piper James” – a process expected to take several weeks.
Regardless, nine days ago, Queensland’s environment minister, Andrew Powell, said an entire pack of 10 animals would be euthanised – leading dingo experts to warn of an “extinction vortex” for Australia’s only native canid on the island where they have likely roamed for thousands of years.
With less than 200 isolated individuals, the K’gari dingo population already has low genetic diversity and high levels of inbreeding, Dr Kylie Cairns, an expert on dingo genetics at the University of New South Wales, has said.
James’s mother, Angela, however, has told the national broadcaster that both parents believe killing the dingoes “is the last thing Piper would want”.
But a department spokesperson said rangers deemed the canids an “unacceptable public safety risk” after they spent a week closely monitoring that pack and observed aggressive behaviour.
The tragedy is the latest in an escalating string of aggressive encounters between dingoes and tourists on K’gari and the first death since nine-year-old Clinton Gage was killed by two dingoes in 2001, after which 32 dingoes were culled.
A spokesperson for Queensland’s environment department said on Tuesday afternoon that eight dingoes had been “humanely euthanised”.
“The operation is ongoing, with one dingo outstanding,” the spokesperson said.
Traditional owners have said they were not consulted nor involved in the decision to euthanise the dingoes, who they call wongari and consider sacred.
AAP contributed to this report
