Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1933 - 1954), Tuesday 12 December 1933, page 16


NOT MAN-KILLER

Australian Dingo

PASTORALISTS' VIEWS

Prominent pastoralists, with a wide experience of dingoes and the bush generally, yesterday scouted the possi-bility of dingoes attacking human beings, as suggested in the report of the search for three Brisbane girls.

Mr. Norman Bourke, president of the United Graziers' Association, said he knew the habits of dingoes very well,

but he had never heard of a case of human beings being attacked by the dogs. It was a million to one chance against It, though he be-lieved that there might be just a possibility if a person were abso-lutely disabled.

There were some who as

serted that men

had been attacked by dingoes in the days when the dogs used to hunt in big mobs of 50 or 80, remarked Mr. R. C Philp, president of the Cattle Growers' Association, but he had been among them all his life, and he had never heard of a case. They would have to be very hungry before there would be any possibility of an attack, he added.

Mr. Godfrey Morgan, M.L.A., asserted that it was generally recog-nised by bushmen that a human being had to be very nearly dead, if not quite so, before there was any risk of attack. He had never heard of a man being attacked, though he had heard of human remains, which had been scattered by the dogs, being dis-

covered.

The Director of the Queensland Museum (Mr. H. A. Longman) de-clined to commit himself on the sub-ject, simply remarking that there was a lot of conflicting evidence.