IT WAS the government itself that declared its response to foxes in Tasmania would be based on ‘hard physical evidence’.

Using the Tasmanian Government’s own documentation (released under Freedom of Information) the ‘hard evidence’ to support its proposition, that there are (or were) free-ranging foxes in Tasmania, is in my view insubstantial and in the case of crucial evidences, the authenticity is questionable.

In 2002 the State Government commissioned me to prepare a technical report and provide recommendations on Tasmania’s Preparedness & Response to face the introduction of a serious animal disease such as Foot and Mouth Disease or Mad Cow Disease. The State relies on field surveillance and laboratory diagnostic capability to assess if any disease incident in the State’s livestock is indeed a serious exotic disease. In these instances the stakes are very high indeed and precise steps are taken to confirm or exclude the possibility of a serious exotic disease. Because so much depends on it, veterinary officials are trained to high standards to get it right — one way or the other.

And getting it right involves the use of a science-based risk assessment based on solid and independently verifiable information both in relation to the disease symptoms animals are displaying supported by accurate disease testing methods.

By following a set protocol, getting the process right means that everyone can have confidence in the process and in the result – one way or the other. That way there is confidence and no doubt.

The evidence to verify the entry and establishment of foxes in Tasmania is quite similar; it relies on credible field intelligence backed up by verification.

The significant difference between foxes and FMD is that whilst the presence of foxes would have a major economic & environmental impact for Tasmania it wouldn’t lead to a national embargo on all Australian exports of meat or dairy products as with FMD or BSE.

Fox-infested Victoria

It is universally agreed that the establishment of foxes would be very serious for Tasmania. With the dramatic decline in devil numbers, the island state has been and continues to be vulnerable to fox incursions from fox-infested Victoria & beyond. The State has at least one recent incident (and perhaps two) where a single fox arrived courtesy of the trans-Bass Strait container ferry from the Port of Melbourne — in 1998 (and again in 2003). But as the saying goes, you need two to tango!

The highest risk situation for successful establishment of foxes is of course the malicious intentional release of several foxes — the scenario that the Department of Primary Industry, Water & Environment believed had occurred sometime after the 1998 fox escape at Burnie.

For nearly 5 years now Tasmania’s government has strenuously argued that its public response to foxes was strongly based on a briefing from DPIWE staff alleging that they knew that foxes had been smuggled into Tasmania and they knew who the culprits were. It was publicly announced that fox cubs from two litters were smuggled in, reared in secret and let go in at least three separate locations. This has been the constant belief of the government … through three Ministers for the Environment (David Llewellyn, Bryan Green and Judy Jackson). In June 2001 these allegations were investigated and tested by Tasmania Police and shown to be groundless [see FOI documents released by Tasmania Police].

In the case of the 1998 fox, there were numerous eyewitness accounts of a fox being on board the boat, escaping into the Burnie Port depot and then finally escaping the compound. There is also video footage of a fox trotting down the main beach at Burnie leaving a trail of footprints. This 1998 incident provided the hard physical evidence that a fox could cross Bass Strait on a ship. This was the fox incident to ask: How could this have happened and could it happen again?

In 1998 this is what the then Director of Parks and Wildlife, Mr Max Kitchell said: “Despite capturing it on video and getting a good set of prints, we were unable to capture the fox. We have tried many different tactics to locate the animal and since none of them has been successful at this stage, we have decided to switch the focus of our fox control measures to preventing the same situation ever occurring again. Now that there appears to be an individual fox loose in Tasmania, it is more important than ever no more foxes be able to slip into the state.”

Well, I believe another Victorian fox arrived in Burnie in October 2003.

This more recent fox incursion involved the now famous ‘fox in a box’. It was presented to media at Burnie Police Station and was allegedly struck by a vehicle on the Bass Highway very close to the Port of Burnie. I have argued that the pathology report could not exclude the possibility that this 2003 fox was freshly killed by bludgeoning to the head and then dumped by the roadside. Government media claimed the evidence suggested this animal was a fox living in the Burnie environs that had been hit by a passing car. No official mention of the other plausible likelihood, namely another fox recently arrived from Victoria.

Last weekend a journalist with The Sunday Examiner newspaper who covered the ‘fox in the box’ story in 2003 wrote: “In October 2003, all media outlets in Tasmania were summoned to the Burnie police station to view the ‘fox in the box’. I smelt a rat rather than a squashed vixen.”

Despite the official line, DPIWE did try to explore the possibility of a connection to the Trans-Strait ferry but this proved difficult.

Why can’t the public know?

In late August 2003 there were public statements regarding fox taskforce 3-year funding coming to an end.

In October 2003 the State government’s explanation for the new Burnie fox incident was convenient. For government officials to entertain another ‘the out of Victoria’ scenario would have been potentially embarrassing because it would assume that either this fox had breached the State’s border quarantine or that another fox hoax had been perpetrated.

Which one do you think a bureaucracy and a government would prefer as the public explanation?

If there was a history of fox hoaxing and unsubstantiated fox sightings in Tasmania, was it reasonable for bureaucrat decision-makers to carefully consider all options?

Had fox hoaxing become so prevalent, almost to the level a local Tasmanian art form?

It is noteworthy that no-one came forward to report hitting this fox with their vehicle. Despite the then Minister for the Environment, Mr Bryan Green, saying how important the DNA evidence on this fox would be to the forensic understanding of fox establishment in Tasmania, this crucial result has never been made public. After a barrage of excuses and delays of nearly 10 months, I publicly asked for the DNA result in June 2004. It still hasn’t been released.

Why can’t the public know this DNA result?

If the State Government’s fox policy had been based on the likelihood of entry and the serious consequences of the fox establishing self-sustaining populations in Tasmania, then the resource allocation would have been tailored to the threat level. But if this had been done we might have a vastly different strategy focusing firstly on preventing entry, effective border protection, monitoring entry points and surveillance of hot spot locations where foxes might establish.

The combination of a well targeted biosecurity/quarantine program supported by stringent surveillance & inspection at our hotspot points of entry and backed up with community awareness & education. After the 1998 fox incident, a preventative, precautionary approach to safeguard Tasmania against the threat of further fox incursions would have been fully justified … and well received publicly.

So let’s review what happened after 1998.

The public curiosity fuelled by a reactive local media meant that fox interest was very high and there was a consequent rise in fox sightings. Parallels with Tasmania’s other elusive carnivore, the thylacine, have been made.

Fox hoaxing and fox sighting almost assumed the status of a local sport

In the new Millennium fox hoaxing and fox sighting almost assumed the mantle of a local sport — a game played most energetically by the hoaxers and the hoaxed; but watched by most Tasmanians with interest.

Even the politicians and senior bureaucrats realised that this spate of fox publicity without any scientifically sound evidence would jeopardise public confidence in the authorities. They would also know that when public confidence is undermined then scepticism and cynicism mounts and genuine cooperation from the community can fall away dramatically.

Tasmania’s fox experts, Tim Bloomfield, Nick Mooney and Chris Emms recently stated their opinions on the public scepticism about foxes in Tasmania: “Super-scepticism of Tasmanians makes it more likely evidence of foxes will be overlooked because people are less likely to come forward. Attendant public criticism of the response also means the public and authorities may not again respond unless evidence is overwhelming (satisfying the lowest common denominator) meaning it will likely be too late.

“Super-scepticism exists because of the small amount of hard evidence of foxes, decades of “cry-wolf” with Thylacines, hoaxes of both foxes and Thylacines and outlandish claims on both sides of conservation politics; most people don’t know what to believe.”

A fair summation, however, my view is that this evolved because the public no longer had confidence in the story told to them and hence lost faith in the programs applied to manage the fox threat.

To understand Tasmania’s fox saga and the public policies subsequently taken one needs to carefully review all incidents and events in context.

The general public has received regular but disjointed serves of this unfolding story — some reactive, some proactive; some scientific and some political. Examining and reflecting on all the material in the story provides important insights as to whether the public policy settings and funding was based on sound decision-making.

In September 2004 Nick McKim MHA put in a FOI request for the documentation relating to the ‘hard physical evidence’ that the FFTF had on the main fox incidents in Tasmania — the fox allegedly shot at Symmons Plains in September 2001 and the fox found dead by the roadside at Burnie in October 2003. The FOI also requested information of scat analyses, forensic samples collected from foxes, DNA testing, other evidences collected through sand pads, camera stations, spotlighting and fox sighting incidents.

The FOI request was provided on 18 November and I was asked to examine the 110 pages of FOI documents. From my assessment of this FOI documentation I was not convinced that these documents supported the critical assumptions or conclusions that were being made publicly by the FFTF and which the government relied on to make policy.

In relation to the Symmons Plain fox incident I was particularly drawn to the brevity of the pathology report and the discrepancies in the descriptions of crucial items of forensic evidence recovered from the stomach of this decomposed fox. I was also struck by the fact that one departmental individual was responsible for so many specialised activities relating to the investigation of this incident.

Mammalian parts identified as belonging to a Tasmanian endemic long tailed mouse and recovered from the stomach of this fox were offered as clear, irrefutable evidence that the Symmons Plains fox had been shot on site. I tested and questioned the reliability of that conclusion on the grounds that recognised mammalogists have stated the difficulty in distinguishing this mouse from other species of rodent based solely on hair samples.

There was no second opinion

There was also the matter of a discrepancy between the description of the specimens that the officer stated he sent for examination and what was examined by the expert. In addition this important piece of forensic evidence was examined by only one expert; there was no second opinion. I requested the Department review that physical evidence again and obtain other opinions. And finally the report from the expert is very brief and contains no technical detail to verify or justify this important determination. From the point of view of the Department, they needed to have confidence in all their investigation procedures and processes as well as in the reliability of the results they received.

In November 2001 Peter Mooney FFTF leader stated publicly that the DNA collected from the Symmons Plains fox closely matched the DNA recovered from a decomposed fox skin that was posted to DPIWE offices at Prospect. This fox skin was assumed to be derived from another fox allegedly shot near Longford in July 2001. At the time a colour picture showing a fox held by two men by a Longford road sign was published in a local newspaper. Peter Mooney suggested that the DNA fingerprinting confirmed that the Symmons Plains and the Longford foxes were closely related; he said publicly, ‘they’re actually siblings’.

Here are the relevant comments from FOI documents discussing the DNA evidence on these two foxes:
‘the two Tasmanian samples have a high similarity to each other — i.e. could possibly be full siblings as they share a high proportion of alleles. Both samples can not be reliably assigned to any of the urban Melbourne populations we have tested (i.e. they are unlikely to be derived from Melbourne).’ [Email from Nick Robinson to Peter Mooney 9 Nov 2001].

“… It is difficult to say how probable it is that the two (Tasmanian fox samples) are full sibs without parental genotypes. … The two Tasmanian samples share 70% of the alleles, so they are definitely on the high side [of relatedness]. But they might also be from the same inbred population on the mainland, hence a high allele sharing.” [Email from Nick Robinson to Peter Mooney 12 Nov 2001].

In August 2004, Nick Mooney said he believed that the Longford fox picture and posted fox skin was ‘likely to be a hoax’. This admission should have called for a reassessment of the conclusions drawn about any genetic relatedness between this ‘likely to be a hoax’ fox and the Symmons Plains fox.

If the Longford fox was ‘likely to be a hoax’ then could that mean that the genetically-similar Symmons Plains fox was also ‘likely to be a hoax’?

And if the DNA findings are correct in the conclusion that these two foxes are closely related, could both be from a distinct population on the mainland but from outside Melbourne?

I concluded that the DNA evidence and the forensic tests of the Symmons Plains fox had not confidently proved that the ‘Symmons Plains’ fox had actually lived and survived in Tasmania.

If there is confidence in the DNA testing of these two foxes, it would have been more prudent to at least conclude that the skin sent by post to DPIWE’s Prospect Offices and the Symmons Plains fox were derived (or originated) from the same fox population.

One would need to then consider all plausible scenarios that would be consistent with the available DNA evidence, namely that:
(1) both foxes lived and survived in Tasmania and closely related to a mainland fox population (outside Melbourne), or
(2) both foxes were brought to Tasmania as dead exhibits (one as carcase the other a skin) shot at the same location (outside Melbourne).

For the FFTF and the State Government the authenticity of the Symmons Plains fox was and still is the smoking gun that confirmed that foxes were at large in Tasmania. Because this evidence is so paramount all aspects of this incident need to be carefully assessed and weighed up. And that includes the credibility of the reported events and the reliability of the witnesses to that event.

* The Red Fox In Tasmania: an incursion waiting to happen (2005)

David Obendorf is a veterinarian.