Body of Canadian woman, 19, found surrounded by dingoes on Australian island

The body of a 19-year-old Canadian woman was found surrounded by a pack of dingoes in Australia, but police do not know if her death was caused by the wild dogs

Editor’s note: CTV News reached out to Global Affairs Canada, who responded with an email saying they are aware of the death and are providing consular assistance to the family.

Police in Queensland, Australia are investigating the death of a 19-year-old woman after her body was found surrounded by wild dogs on a beach at K’Gari, formerly known as Fraser Island.

The island, a UNESCO world heritage site, lies off Australia’s eastern coast and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

The woman was a Canadian national who had spent the past six weeks working at a backpackers’ hostel on the island, Queensland police said during a press conference. They said she had traveled there with a friend from her home country.

Around 5 a.m. local time on Monday (2 p.m. ET on Sunday), the woman told people she was going for an early morning swim, police said.

Just over an hour later, two men driving past spotted a pack of approximately 10 dingoes surrounding her body on the beach near the Maheno shipwreck.

Police said it is too early to know if the woman’s death was caused by the wild dogs, which are protected as a native species in Queensland’s national parks.

“I can confirm that the woman’s body had been touched and interfered with by the dingoes,” said Queensland Police Inspector Paul Algie, “but we’re not speculating yet as to whether that was anything to do with her cause of death.”

Algie added that while dingoes are culturally significant to the island’s locals and Indigenous people, “they’re wild animals and they need to be treated as such.”

“I implore all people that visit K’Gari, which is a beautiful place, that you do not go near dingoes, that you do not feed dingoes, and that you just leave them to live their life and you move around them accordingly.”

Algie said the incident has rocked the island’s tight-knit local community. “The police on K’Gari are locals to K’Gari. They have been speaking to local community members all day and as you can imagine, everyone is absolutely horrified and shocked at what has occurred.”

The woman’s body has been returned to the mainland and is set for autopsy on Wednesday.

Queensland police said they have notified the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to get in contact with the victim’s family.

The RCMP told CNN it’s aware of an investigation in Australia in relation to the death of a Canadian citizen, but would not comment on specific criminal investigations in foreign jurisdictions.

By Georgiana Ralphs