Parkhurst took refuge in her nature diaries (begun as a kid) and photography, but within a few bitter years she developed the chronic pain condition fibromyalgia, lost her mother, Lois, to cancer, and was diagnosed with diabetes. Soon afterwards, she narrowly escaped another attack by a stranger with a knife. Later, abandoned at a nightclub by a boyfriend, she was walking home when a motorist stopped and tried to drag her into his car. At 16, suffering from depression, Parkhurst began seeing a psychologist. But in high school she became the target of a gang of mostly male bullies who called her "goody two shoes" (and other, progressively uglier, things) and made her life hell. She wondered about everything."īright, pretty, and well behaved, she was in her own words "a good little Christian", close to her family and popular among teachers. "She'd spend hours looking at the bark on trees. "She'd see ants, and wonder how they could carry such a load," says her father, Harold. Raised in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, she took her first steps at an animal sanctuary and grew up fascinated by the ways of nature. Credit:Courtesy of Jennifer Parkhurstįor most of her troubled life, Parkhurst, 45, has preferred the company of animals. When Parkhurst's compassion for the animals overcame her fear of breaking the law, the scene was set for perhaps the starkest example of official retribution against an individual in Australian conservation history.Īngels or devils? … Parkhurst says she always felt safer with dingoes around her. But as the photographer was drawn ever deeper into the pack's daily struggles to survive - recording their habits in her journals over four years and sharing the information with scientists and dingo researchers around Australia - other eyes were watching. Kirra was like my best friend." Sometimes she would bring a bedroll and stay with the pack overnight: "I used to love sleeping with them all around me, because I knew I'd be safe."Īnd she was, at least from the dingoes. Later, she let me look after her pups while she went hunting. She would greet me with little play bows and stay with me for hours. "She was playing beside a billabong when we first met," says Parkhurst as we walk on the island. Dog days … Jennifer Parkhurst with one of the Hook Point pack she studied for several years.
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