I’m sure that most people here have heard about the “Baby and the Dingo” case. On the 17th of August 1980 seven week old Azaria Chamberlain disappeared from her parents’ tent at Uluru (Ayers Rock). Her parents claimed that they saw a dingo take the child.
The first inquest supported their claim. However, there was a great deal of public criticism of this verdict and a second inquest overturned that verdict and Azaria’s mother, Lindy Chamberlain, was indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of her daughter and her father, Michael, was found guilty of being an accessory to the murder. I well recall watching Lindy talking about the death of her child. She was seen as ‘cold’ and ‘remote’ – it was that ‘attitude’ that helped to convict her. I saw a woman trying to hold on to her emotions in public.
In 1986, the chance discovery of a piece of Azaria’s clothing led to Lindy’s release from prison, and in 1988 the Northern Territory Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously overturned all convictions against Azaria’s parents.
I landed in Darwin, in the Northern Territory, on the 1st of May 1987. The case still divided the community. I read as much as I could, and was convinced that “The Dingo Done It”.
The Dingo is a beautiful animal, and so like a domesticated dog. But it is not a domesticated dog, and the Aboriginals, who really know best, told anyone who would listen that dingos were dangerous and were the likely culprit. The problem was that no one listened to the Aboriginals. Few wanted to believe that a ‘dog’ could or would take and eat a baby. Nor did many listen to the scientific evidence presented in the Book “Evil Angels” which showed that not only were dingos capable of taking a baby and removing its clothing, but that much of the ‘forensic’ evidence used to convict Lindy was fabricated.
The film “Evil Angels” was shown in Darwin in 1988. I went to see it. The atmosphere in the cinema was quite frightening. There was absolute silence and no one spoke as they walked out of the cinema. It was clear that many people in Darwin were still convinced that Azaria had been murdered by her mother. The film was shown for just one week, public opinion was just too strong against the Chamberlains for the film to be shown any longer.
In 1995, a third inquest gave an open verdict as the cause of Azaria’s death.
However, the Chamberlains, despite being divorced, have never given up trying to prove their innocence.
Today, 32 years later, a Coronal Inquest officially amended Azaria Chamberlain’s death certificate to indicate that Azaria was taken and killed by a dingo. Crucial to the change in public opinion was a string of dingo attacks during the late 1990s on Fraser Island off the Queensland coast, the last refuge for isolated pure-breed wild dingoes. It emerged that there had been at least 400 documented dingo attacks on Fraser Island. Most were against children.
Finally the Chamberlains have received justice, and Azaria’s death certificate has been amended to show the true cause of death,
Boadicea's Chariot 
I’m glad it is at last over for the parents. I don’t understand why it took so long for the realisation that dingos are wild animals to sink in.
My daughter visited Fraser Island on her trip to Australia and she was horrified that people actually encouraged the dingos by feeding them from their plates, despite the warnings. She said they were much too comfortable with humans and it was not a good idea.
I always had trouble with the concept of taking an extremely small child camping in the first place!
Australia is such a known hostile environment with its multiplicity of poisonous snakes, scorpions, dingos etc what kind of moron takes a babe in arms to such a place camping?
Even if the parents didn’t kill it they were surely somewhat complicit in its death by exposing the child to such risks.
The kindest thing one can attribute is Darwinism strikes again by becoming part of the food chain.
Mind you on the basis of 6 years imprisonment for idiocy most of the world would be locked up!
Did she ever have any other children?
I rather put this case on a par with the McCann fiasco, totally self inflicted by the parents utterly stupid behaviour and then a lifetime of regrets, handwringing and all the usual attendant kerfuffle and a great deal of public expense.
Dingos are not that pleasant. Like the vulpus vulpus, they might look nice but they’re nasty and vicious.
Their natures did not improve with interbreeding with other dogs. Arguably they’ve grown even worse.
As is typical, the indigenes, are summarily ignored as their very cognizant observations on the breed are not in keeping with the “oh, look at the pretty doggy” mentality that pervades larger society.
CO: I’d rather take my chances with dingos, giant arachnids, and angry serpents than a lot of people. The animals don’t make it personal.
I always felt that the parents were innocent of murder in this case. Gross stupidity yes but murder no.
I wonder of the MCcanns will now say that perhaps Dingos or the Iberian Wolf was involved, then ask for more donations as their funds are running low
Chris, the answer being shoot the lot of them when they piss you off!
For some peculiar reason quite beyond me ‘they’ don’t seem to like you doing that though!!
rr, time someone shot the McCanns too! Guilty of causing boredom if nothing else.
Hello, Boadicea
At the time l found it hard to believe that a dingo could run with an 8 week old baby in its jaws, and it must have run with Azaria surely, not dragged her? I don’t remember clearly her account of the incident though, it didn’t seem to be very detailed, but I could be wrong. Yes, I agree that it was a great pity that no-one listened to the Aborigines, the investigation was very badly handled.
Lindy came across as very cold and hard, but I take your point when you say, “I saw a woman trying to hold on to her emotions in public.” People have different coping methods. I am reminded of many extremely emotional interviews with people who are later charged with murdering their “loved ones”.
Pity about the bad press for the dingoes; wild animals and people don’t mix well. I have also visited Frazer Island and seen how dingoes have lost their fear of humans due to feeding. Shame.
Anyway, I’m glad for the Chamberlain family.
Am I right in thinking that they didn’t send out an Aboriginal tracker for quite some time after Azaria’s disappearance?
RR: Iberian Wolf? But our OZ has never done anything like that! If anything, he’s only taken a few sheep to get by…
As an aside, I knew and loved a dingo called “Beryl the Feral” (RIP). She wouldn’t touch a hair on the head of a creature on “her property”, but thought that wood ducks on MY property were fair game, rather like a rogue sheepdog. She loved cats too.
Araminta
One has only to look at a dingo to understand why so many people forget that it is a wild animal – they look far too like our friendly domesticated dogs!
Christina
Yes – Australia is a hostile environment. But I’ve only seen a snake once in 25 years and it was so terrified of me that it froze! And that was on a dirt road miles from anywhere. I certainly would not leave a baby alone in a tent. The Chamberlains had two children older than Azaria – their fourth and last child was born in prison. Having visited both Ayers Rock and the Northern Territory Prison in which Lindy was imprisoned – I’d settle for a tent at Ayers Rock any time!
Christopher
As you rightly say dingos look nice – but they are not!
Rick
I have the feeling that it was far easier for us in the UK to accept that a dingo took the baby than it was for Australians.
Bilby
I found your answer extremely interesting – and I think supports my theory that many Australians could not believe that this beautiful animal would attack a human. For those of us the other side of the world – a wild animal is capable of anything!
As far as I can make out the initial investigation was a mess and subsequent investigations were carried out with the aim of trying to prove that Lindy had murdered her daughter.
Bo, do you know if the boys were on the same camping trip?
Wild animals are capable of anything, our coyotes and eagles would take and eat small dogs and interestingly the dogs know it. (Even if the people don’t!) Small dogs being exactly the same weight as a baby but tougher eating.
A terrible wrecking of so many lives for such utter stupidity. I doubt the other children are ‘normal’ in the circumstances.
It seems odd that Australians could not believe that a wild dingo could make off with a baby. In Britain there are too many examples of so-called pet dogs attacking children. I read somewhere that wild dogs have very strong jaws, so a dingo would be quite capable of carrying a baby. What a pity everyone was convinced the mother had killed the child, when all the evidence pointed the other way.
I had been in Australia two years in 1980, Boadicea. Most of the people I spoke to about the case expressed disbelief that a dingo could carry a baby, and no-one knew if dingoes could run with natural prey of a similar weight. A dingo is not a particularly large dog. Such events may not been observed in the wild by anyone other than white Australians who lived in the interior on cattle/sheep stations and Aborigines. I feel it had more to do with the fact that such an incident was unknown at the time and there was a certain amount of scepticism about a dingo (usually wary of humans) being bold enough to enter a tent and take a baby. There was similar disbelief in England recently when urban foxes entered homes and attacked young children; normally shy creatures losing their fear of humans, with inevitable consequences.
I expect it will come as no surprise to you that I admire the dingo (along with other canines and lupines), yet I harbour no misconceptions about it being sweet and cuddly; but it is certainly beautiful, intelligent and admirable in many ways. I view it now as an unusual and tragic event. Regardless of whether or not it was sensible to camp in Australia with such a young baby, there was no way the Chamberlains could anticipate such a thing happening. Very sad.
I agree with your last paragraph.
Hi Sheona
I believe Lindy Chamberlain said she saw the dingo and shouted words to the effect, “a dingo’s taken my baby”. At the time I had trouble believing that a surprised and alarmed dingo would be able to run at full speed with a baby in its mouth. It would make more sense to me if it had dropped the baby. I am not disputing that a dingo would be able to pick up an 8 week old baby. However, I have no idea how far away the dingo was from the tent when Lindy called out or if she actually saw the baby in the dingo’s mouth. She may have run to the tent in a panic, saw that the baby was missing and put two and two together. It wasn’t clear to me then.
Anyway, I’m really glad for the family that it’s been put to rest after all these years.
Christina – I believe the whole family were camping.
Bilby
The Rangers at Ayers Rock had been reporting the fact that dingos were going into the camping site and stealing food from the barbecues right under the noses of the campers. They’d asked for permission to cull the animals and had been refused. The Head Warden at the time was on TV a few days ago still, obviously, angry that that he had not been allowed to do anything about the situation. It is not an unusual event. In fact part of the reason that the Coroner made her decision was that there have been so many reports of attacks by dingos since then.
I agree, dingos are – or can be – extremely beautiful, intelligent animals. But, they are wild – and a wild animal that is hungry will take food wherever it can find it.
I didn’t know that, Boadicea. My comments were based on my memory of television reports and newspapers and I didn’t follow it in-depth. It was an unusual event, however, in that (as far as I know) it was the first time it was reported in the media that a baby had been taken by a dingo.
Yes, indeed. They are intelligent and opportunistic and finding food, any food, is what they do to survive. Sorry, I just hate these clashes between wild animals and humans. The animals always lose in the end.
Bilby – I think you will find that the news coverage at the time ‘conveniently’ didn’t mention either the Rangers’ comments or the opinions of the Aboriginals. So I very much doubt that your memory is faulty! I’ll stand by my comment that it seems that the emphasis was on trying to prove the family guilty – even to the point of fabricating evidence. It has been quite noticeable that those who were involved in that investigation have been conspicuous by their silence this week!
The problem is that while the world continues to insist on ‘growth’ – especially population growth – clashes between animals and humans will increase and, I’m pretty sure, will eventually end up with clashes between humans.
Boadicea: “I’m pretty sure… will eventually end up with clashes between humans”. That’s long happened.
That is one reason why Mesopotamia was much, much more violent and prone to strife than ancient Egypt.
Life along the Nile may have been difficult, but the river flooded regularly and people usually had enough to eat. In pre-Columbian North America the relative strength — and importance — of warrior societies hinged on how much food societies were able to gather. The great warrior nations: the Lakota, Apache, and Comanche lived in desolate, harsh climates where food was difficult to secure. They had to be militant in order to nourish themselves. California nations didn’t have the same warrior tradition as they rarely lacked food supplies to get by.
I agree basically with your comment at #18, Boadicea, but believe (as does Christopher), that clashes between humans always happened; they are happening now and will further escalate due to population growth. Wild creatures, especially large ones, cannot compete in the struggle for food and habitat.
I shall leave this thread now or I might start banging on about the mess we’ve made of the oceans! 🙂
Christopher & Bilby:
No one could disagree with either of you. There have always been conflicts between human populations for the control of the necessities of life and for resources that enhance the quality of life (gold, etc!) for the ruling classes. Need or Greed inevitably lead to strife. What frightens me is that nuclear bombs are just a tad more lethal than bows and arrows…
As you may know Bilby (if you return to this thread) the Government here is about to increase the areas of fish reservations (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/travel/australia/marine-reserves-to-limit-fishing/story-e6frfhbf-1226395238985).
Needless to say, those who fish in those areas are screaming, and we, the taxpayers, are expected, not only to pick up the tab for compensating them for their loss of income, but also to pay (even!) more for our fish.
What really gets up my nose is that no one, but no one seems to be willing to tackle the problem of over-population. So you can bang on about the mess we’ve made of the oceans – and I will bang on about reducing the habitat of the orang-utans. We may come from differing starting points: I suspect yours is far more animal-orientated than mine which is somewhat pragmatic. But I’m sure that we’ll both end up agreeing that we humans cannot survive by destroying the rest of life on this planet.
Thanks for the link, Boadicea. Good for Australia. I appreciate the difficulties for fishermen and consumers/taxpayers, but the problem has to be tackled. There’ll be more screaming if stocks are further depleted, not to mention the dire consequences for ocean life such as cetaceans and sharks.
The over-population issue really gets up my nose too! I could also bang on about orang utans and much much more.
“But I’m sure that we’ll both end up agreeing that we humans cannot survive by destroying the rest of life on this planet.” Yes, absolutely!