A seven-year-old Japanese girl who was badly injured in a dog attack near Rotorua remains in a critical condition.
The girl was initially taken to Rotorua Hospital by a rescue helicopter after being mauled by four Staffordshire bull terrier cross dogs in Murupara before being transferred to Auckland's Middlemore Hospital late on Monday night.
The rescue helicopter pilot says about 90 percent of the girl's face has been damaged.
He says she also has puncture wounds to both arms, her legs, and her hip and pelvis area.
A Middlemore Hospital spokesperson says the girl is still in the intensive care unit after extensive surgery and it's likely she will need more surgery.
Police say the girl was playing at the home of family friends when the dogs, family pets belonging to the semi-rural property's owner, attacked her.
Murupara Community Board chair Jacob Te Kurapa says the girl's family had been staying at the small town for about six weeks and had planned to move there. He says the community will rally around them.
Whakatane district mayor Tony Bonne told Morning Report the dogs were registered and micro-chipped and have been put down. He says their owner was a "responsible dog owner" and is "devastated".
Mr Bonne says several households in the area have several large dogs because they use them for hunting.
He says certain breeds of dogs should never have been allowed by the Government. "There are breeds of dogs that are in New Zealand which I personally don't agree with but the Government of the day has allowed them."
Little change - Carolina's father
The father of a dog attack victim says little appears to have changed in the 11 years since his daughter was mauled.
John Anderson, whose daughter Carolina Anderson was attacked in 2003 when she was also seven, says the Government dropped a school education programme on safety around dogs to save money.
"When there are small children around they are prone to triggering this sort of behaviour in dogs unwittingly, so they need to be really on a leash, tied somewhere, I think, in that situation," he told Morning Report.
Mr Anderson says New Zealand goes to considerable lengths to save endangered bird species from predators but dog attacks on children continue.
