Colonial response to Euthanasia of Wongari (Dingoes) on K’gari.

Cultural Authority, Conservation Ethics, and Human–Wildlife Governance.

Abstract

The euthanasia of ten wongari (dingoes) on K’gari (Fraser Island), following the death of a 19-year-old international visitor in 2026, represents an act of colonial violence in Australian wildlife governance and a failure of International environmental law and UNESCO to protect pure-bred dingoes.  While the loss of human life warrants unequivocal acknowledgement and compassion, the colonial institutional response raises significant ethical, cultural, and ecological concerns. This position statement argues that reactionary lethal control reflects enduring governance failures, particularly the marginalisation of Aboriginal cultural authority, rather than evidence-based or culturally grounded prevention strategies. Drawing on archaeological, ethnographic, Indigenous, and conservation scholarship, this paper contends that lethal responses neither address the structural drivers of human–wildlife conflict nor honour the unique cultural and ecological significance of wongari on K’gari. A shift toward culturally led, prevention-focused governance is required to protect both human safety and Cultural Safety.

Keywords: wongari; dingoes; K’gari; Indigenous governance; human–wildlife conflict; conservation ethics

Cultural Authority – Butchulla People

The Butchulla people are the Traditional Owners of K’gari and the surrounding sea and coastal Country of the Great Sandy Strait in south-east Queensland. K’gari, meaning paradise in the Butchulla language, is a living cultural landscape shaped by thousands of years of continuous care, knowledge, and connection. Australia endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2009. This declaration affirms Indigenous peoples’ rights to cultural recognition, dignity, and participation in matters affecting their Country. When public institutions, tourism operators, or government agencies fail to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of K’gari, they act inconsistently with these commitments, particularly the rights to culture, history, and self-determination.

Introduction

The decision to euthanise ten wongari on K’gari following a fatal human dingo encounter has been publicly framed as a necessary safety intervention. However, this framing risks obscuring deeper structural issues that shape risk, including long-standing warnings from Indigenous rangers, tourism pressure, visitor non-compliance, and the continued exclusion of Aboriginal cultural authority from wildlife governance. It is also void of acknowledgement of the First Nations’ Dingo Declaration (2023) and Under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), states should meaningfully consult Indigenous peoples when decisions affect their cultural heritage and lands, but we feel this did not happen, as stated by the Butchulla people.

This position statement challenges narratives that individualise blame onto animals and instead situates the event within broader systems of governance, knowledge, and power. Written from an Indigenous standpoint that recognises wongari as kin rather than expendable wildlife, it argues that prevention, cultural authority, and institutional accountability are essential to reducing future harm to both people and Country.

Dingoes as Living Governance: Cultural Roles, Law, and Relatedness

For Aboriginal peoples across the Australian continent, dingoes currently occupy complex cultural roles as teachers, protectors, companions, and law-holders. These relationships are not symbolic abstractions or historical residues; they constitute living governance systems that regulate human behaviour in relation to Country.

Ethnographic research documents dingoes as embedded within kinship systems, moral instruction, and social organisation, shaping how people learn responsibility, restraint, and care (Meggitt, 1965; Rose, 1992; Smith, 2015). Archaeological evidence further demonstrates that dingoes were integrated into burial practices, domestic spaces, and everyday life, reflecting enduring relational bonds rather than utilitarian use (Balme & O’Connor, 2016; Koungoulos et al., 2023).

Across multiple regions, historical and ethnographic records show that dingoes function as conduits of Law, communicating how to behave on Country, how to recognise danger, and how to maintain balance between human and non-human life (Berndt & Berndt, 1993; Cahir & Clark, 2013). Rock art, oral traditions, and place-based narratives further illustrate dingoes as agents of social regulation and ecological knowledge rather than passive fauna (Brady & Bradley, 2014; Bradley et al., 2021).

Importantly, these governance systems are not static. Contemporary Indigenous scholars and organisations emphasise that relationships with wongari continue to inform cultural responsibility, conservation ethics, and management practice today (Blake, 2022; Philip, 2021; Girringun Aboriginal Corporation, 2023). Excluding Aboriginal cultural authority from decisions affecting wongari therefore, represents not only cultural erasure but a substantive governance failure.

Conservation Significance and Ecological Responsibility

Beyond their cultural roles, wongari hold significant ecological importance as apex predators and as a genetically distinct population shaped by deep time. Archaeological and genetic research confirms the ancient presence of dingoes in Australia and their role in shaping ecological systems over millennia (Balme et al., 2018; Brumm, 2021).

Ecological and archaeological studies also demonstrate that dingoes have influenced prey populations and landscape processes, including interactions with now-extinct species such as the thylacine (Fillios et al., 2012). Disrupting dingo social structures through lethal control risks destabilising pack dynamics and generating unintended ecological consequences, particularly in isolated populations.

Governance Failure and the Limits of Reactionary Control

Human–wildlife conflict does not arise in isolation. It is produced through the interaction of human behaviour, tourism intensity, food availability, enforcement practices, and governance structures. Indigenous rangers and communities have long warned that feeding, inadequate visitor education, and inconsistent enforcement increase risk to both people and wongari.

When lethal control is deployed after incidents occur, institutional responsibility is displaced onto animals. From an Indigenous governance perspective, this represents a continuation of colonial management practices that prioritise administrative expediency over culturally grounded prevention, and again, this breaches the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) that Australia endorsed in 2009.

Toward Prevention-Led, Culturally Grounded Governance

This position statement does not argue against human safety. Rather, it argues that safety cannot be achieved through reactionary killing alone. Prevention requires governance systems that embed Aboriginal cultural authority, enforce visitor responsibility, recognise wongari as both kin and ecological actors, and address the systemic conditions that generate risk.

Culturally led governance offers not an alternative to safety, but a pathway toward it. 70 plus thousand years must account for something. Clarkson, C., Jacobs, Z., Marwick, B., et al. (2017).

Conclusion

The death of a young visitor on K’gari is a profound tragedy. The killing of ten wongari in response does not restore life, heal grief, or repair Country. Instead, it exposes enduring failures in wildlife governance that First Nations peoples have identified for generations.

If K’gari is to be protected as a living cultural and ecological landscape, management must move beyond reactionary measures toward prevention-focused, culturally authoritative systems that honour both human life and the ancestral beings bound to this Country.

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