A German tourist on vacation in Australia had to be airlifted to a hospital after he was attacked by dingoes.
The 23-year-old German man was vacationing on Fraser Island near Queensland when he wandered away from his group and wound up falling asleep on a track. He was then mauled by two of the wild dogs.
The man's injuries were so bad that he had to be airlifted to a hospital on the mainland. He suffered serious injuries to his head, legs and arms but he is in stable condition.
Since the attack, park rangers have increased their patrol over the island. They are warning vacationers and residents and asking them to stay safe.
"This incident serves as an ongoing reminder that dingoes are wild animals and need to be treated as such," Queensland Department of National Parks spokesman Ross Belcher said in a statement, according to the Global Post.
"The way to avoid such incidents is for all people to follow the department's dingo safety messages."
Cheryl Bryant from Save Fraser Island Dingoes says that Fraser Island visitors are warned about dingoes, but people don't take the warnings seriously.
"When a few people get together and have a few too many drinks, anything can happen," she said, as quoted by Australia Network News.
Veterinarian Dr Ian Gunn believes that there needs to be more control over tourists.
"In the past, tourist operators were solely responsible for tourists, whereas now it is completely open slather," he told Australia Network News.
This isn't the first time dingoes have attacked people on Fraser Island. A 10-year-old boy was killed by the wild dogs on the island 11 years ago.
Attention was brought to dingo attacks after the 1980 case of Nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain. The infant went missing from a campsite near Uluru in central Australia.
Her mother, Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton was found guilty of the murder of her baby in 1982. She was sentenced to life in prison but she was released in 1986 after further evidence was found indicating that the child may have been taken by dingoes.
In June 2012, more than 30 years since the case, a coroner ruled that the baby was killed by dingoes.
