Australian police are investigating whether a woman found dead on a popular beach was killed by dingoes, as a recent spate of shark attacks prompted officials to close dozens of other beaches on the country’s east coast at the height of summer.
The 19-year-old Canadian woman, who has not been publicly identified, was declared dead shortly after police were called early Monday to a beach on K’gari, formerly known as Fraser Island, off the state of Queensland.
The body was discovered by two men who spotted a pack of about 10 dingoes surrounding it, Police Inspector Paul Algie told reporters.
“I can confirm there was markings on her body consistent with having been touched and interfered with by the dingoes,” he said.
Algie said that it was too early to confirm how the woman died and that it was also possible she had drowned while swimming off K’gari, the world’s largest sand island. Her body was found near the Maheno shipwreck, a popular tourist attraction.
There was no suggestion that the woman, who had been working at a tourist accommodation on the island for about six weeks, was unwell at the time of her death, Algie said. The cause of death should be determined by Wednesday.
“She was a young, healthy Canadian woman who was enjoying the trip of a lifetime and working in a beautiful part of the world,” Algie said. “That’s why this is such a tragic set of circumstances.”
He warned the public to avoid approaching dingoes, a protected native species at K’gari, a World Heritage-listed national park. Though it is rare for them to attack humans, a group of dingoes almost killed a 23-year-old jogger in the same area in 2023.
Separately, dozens of beaches in the state of New South Wales were closed Tuesday after four shark attacks in two days left two people in critical condition.
In Port Macquarie, about 250 miles north of Sydney, beaches are shut after a shark attack at Point Plomer on Tuesday left a 39-year-old surfer with minor injuries, local media reported.
“If you’re thinking about going for a swim, just go to a local pool because at this stage, we’re advising that the beaches are unsafe,” said Steve Pearce, chief executive of Surf Life Saving New South Wales.
Murky water caused by heavy rain in recent days has made bull sharks unusually active, he said.
There were three other attacks around Sydney, Australia’s largest city.
In Sydney’s Northern Beaches area, a surfer was treated for serious leg injuries after he was bitten by a shark Monday evening at North Steyne Beach in the suburb of Manly. The surfer, who is in his 20s, is in critical condition.
“Many are still grieving the loss of Mercury Psillakis and we are all shocked this can have happened again so soon on our beaches,” Northern Beaches Mayor Sue Heins said in a statement, referring to a 57-year-old surfer who was killed by a great white shark in September.
Earlier Monday, a boy escaped unharmed when a shark at Dee Why Beach in the Northern Beaches bit a chunk out of his surfboard.
All beaches in the area are closed through at least Wednesday, Heins said.
On Sunday, a 12-year-old boy was attacked by a shark while he was jumping off rocks with friends near what is known as Shark Beach in the eastern Sydney suburb of Vaucluse, leaving him with severe injuries to both legs.
The organizers of next week’s Sydney Harbour Splash, an annual ocean swimming event on Australia Day, said Monday that they were canceling the event “out of deep respect for the young boy who was tragically attacked yesterday, and for his family and friends.”
Beaches are usually crowded with locals and tourists this time of year in Australia, where it’s the middle of the Southern Hemisphere summer.
Like dingoes, sharks rarely attack humans unprovoked, with Australia recording an average of 20 injury-causing shark incidents a year and fewer than three annual deaths, according to the Australian Shark Attack File, far fewer than the number of people who die from drowning and road accidents.
