{"id":428765,"date":"2026-01-23T20:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T20:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/428765\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T20:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T20:37:12","slug":"canadian-found-dead-on-australian-beach-likely-died-of-drowning-autopsy-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/428765\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian found dead on Australian beach likely died of drowning, autopsy finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Canadian backpacker, who was found dead on an Australian beach and surrounded by a pack of dingoes earlier this week, likely died of drowning, an autopsy has found. <\/p>\n

Piper James, 19, had “physical evidence consistent with drowning” and “injuries consistent with dingo bites”, a spokesperson for the Coroners Court of Queensland told BBC news.<\/p>\n

“Pre-mortem dingo bite marks” were unlikely to have caused her “immediate death”, the spokesperson added. The autopsy was part of a preliminary assessment, and establishing her exact cause of death could take several weeks.<\/p>\n

Piper’s body was found on a beach on K’Gari<\/a>, an island off the eastern state of Queensland on Monday.<\/p>\n

In a statement to the BBC, the coroner also said there were “extensive post-mortem dingo bite marks” and that no evidence anyone else was involved.<\/p>\n

Piper’s father, Todd James told Australia’s 9News that the family felt relieved, as the autopsy results meant her body could be released back to her family in Canada.<\/p>\n

Her mother Angela told Global News<\/a> that her daughter had always dreamed of travelling and had saved money for this trip after she graduated high school.<\/p>\n

Both parents had concerns about her travelling at her age, but Piper was determined.<\/p>\n

The teenager had been working at a backpacker’s hostel for the past six weeks, and told friends she was going for a 05:00 morning swim on Monday, Australian media reported.<\/p>\n

Her body was found around 06:30 local time (20:30 GMT on Sunday).<\/p>\n

She was found near the Maheno shipwreck, which was washed ashore in 1935 and is now a popular tourist landmark.<\/p>\n

The area is known for its population of dingoes, a wild species of native dog that is protected in Queensland national parks.<\/p>\n

About 200 dingoes live on World Heritage-listed K’Gari, according to the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Canadian backpacker, who was found dead on an Australian beach and surrounded by a pack of dingoes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-428765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}