In a world currently choking on its own self-importance, there is something almost refreshing about the brutal honesty of a dingo. While humanity spends its waking hours debating the nuances of pronouns or the morality of plastic straws, the apex predators of K’gari—formerly known by the colonizer-approved moniker of Fraser Island—continue to adhere to a much older, much more efficient set of laws. The latest 'tragedy' involves a Canadian woman found dead on an Australian beach, a victim of what authorities are calling a 'suspected dingo attack.' It is a story that should surprise no one, yet here we are, collectively gasping into our lattes as if the natural world owes us a safe-conduct pass because we paid for a ferry ticket.

Let us dissect the sheer, unadulterated stupidity of the human reaction to such events. The authorities are 'investigating' the death. One wonders what, exactly, they hope to find. A dingo’s signed confession? A motive beyond the inherent biological imperative to eat meat? This is the bureaucratic theatre at its most absurd. When a predator acts like a predator, the government treats it like a criminal investigation, as if the dingoes are expected to read the 'Caution: Wild Animals' signs and suddenly develop a moral compass. The Left will inevitably wail about the encroachment of human foot traffic on sacred, ancestral land, while the Right will demand that the dingoes be culled to protect the precious 'tourism industry.' Both sides are equally moronic. The Left ignores the fact that humans have been 'encroaching' since the first hominid stood upright and realized they could throw a rock; the Right ignores the fact that you cannot kill your way to a sanitized wilderness without turning the entire planet into a concrete parking lot.

The irony of the victim being Canadian adds a particular layer of acid to this narrative. Here is a person hailing from the land of grizzly bears and timber wolves, creatures that could dismantle a human being in the time it takes to say 'I’m sorry,' yet she met her end at the jaws of a glorified golden retriever in a sun-scorched hellscape. It is the ultimate testament to the anthropocentric delusion that we are somehow separate from the ecosystem. We view nature through the sterilized lens of a National Geographic documentary, assuming that as long as we stay on the marked path and take photos from the designated lookout point, the universe will respect our personal space. It won’t. The universe is a cold, indifferent machine, and on K’gari, that machine has four legs and a taste for slow-moving primates who think 'wildlife' is a form of entertainment.

Every time one of these incidents occurs, the 'safety' protocols are updated. More signs are posted. More brochures are printed, warning tourists not to feed the animals, not to walk alone at night, and not to treat the outback like a petting zoo. And yet, the tourists keep coming, armed with their iPhones and an bottomless supply of hubris. They want the 'authentic experience' without the 'authentic risk.' They want to stand on the edge of the abyss and take a selfie, then act shocked when the abyss decides to lean in for a nibble. It is a cycle of managed incompetence that fuels an entire industry of risk assessment and public relations. The death of a human being is transformed into a PR crisis for the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, rather than being recognized for what it is: a predictable outcome of placing soft, fragile creatures in a high-stakes environment.

We live in an era where we have successfully removed almost all consequence from our daily lives. We have safety railings on our balconies and warning labels on our microwave dinners. This has bred a species of human so profoundly disconnected from the reality of their own mortality that they view a beach on a remote island as a safe space. But the dingoes don't care about your 'safe space.' They don't care about your vacation photos or your grieving family back in the Great White North. They care about calories. In a way, there is a certain dignity in that. It is far more honest than the performative mourning of a public that will forget this woman’s name by the next news cycle, or the politicians who will use her death to score points on land management policy.

So, let us continue to 'investigate.' Let us pretend that we can legislate the wild into submission. Let us act as if this was an 'unthinkable tragedy' rather than an inevitable biological transaction. Meanwhile, the dingoes will wait, watching the next boatload of 'nature lovers' disembark with their sunhats and their illusions, ready for another round of the only game that truly matters: the one where the loser gets eaten and the winner gets to survive another day in the dust. The world is not a park; it is a slaughterhouse with a gift shop, and it’s about time we stopped being surprised when someone forgets to check the exit signs.