19-year-old Canadian found dead on K’gari beach surrounded by dingoes

A 19-year-old Canadian woman was found dead on a beach on K’gari (formerly Fraser Island) on Monday morning; police said her body was discovered surrounded by a pack of dingoes.

Wide Bay Burnett District Patrol Inspector Paul Algie said the woman had been working at a backpacker hostel on the island’s eastern beaches and left the hostel at about 5am saying she was going for a swim. Her next known sighting was between 6am and 6:15am on the beach north of the Maheno shipwreck.

Two men driving south from near Orchard beach reported seeing about 10 dingoes near an object and, on closer inspection, found the woman. Algie said the scene was "very traumatic and horrific" for those who uncovered it, and confirmed the body had been "touched and interfered with" by dingoes.

Police are piecing together the roughly 75-minute window of the woman’s movements and have appealed for witnesses. They said a postmortem, set for Wednesday, will be awaited before speculating on cause of death; it is so far unclear whether she drowned or died as a result of a dingo attack. K’gari is a World Heritage-listed sand island, an important refuge for dingoes and described as "paradise" in the Butchulla language. A Canadian friend from the hostel was helping police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police contact the woman’s family and was said to be "extremely traumatised."

Key Topics

World, K'gari, Dingoes, Maheno Shipwreck, Paul Algie, Qps