Ian Rist
Another Tasmanian deer season has come and gone, all the thousands of deer hunters out in the bush in prime fox habitat, hiding up trees, under logs. Seven deer seasons on and no fox. No thousand dollar Tasmanian Times reward either. If anyone was going to shoot a fox it would be Tasmanian recreational hunters.
WELL finally we will get to the bottom of the Tasmanian fox fiasco with an open and transparent Public Accounts Committee hearing. Seven years on since a Police and Ministerial briefing took place we finally have in place a Upper House Public accounts inquiry. Millions and millions of taxpayers’ dollars expended and no fox, not even a photograph of a Tasmanian fox.
Another Tasmanian deer season has come and gone, all the thousands of deer hunters out in the bush in prime fox habitat, hiding up trees, under logs. Seven deer seasons on and no fox. No thousand dollar Tasmanian Times reward either. If anyone was going to shoot a fox it would be Tasmanian recreational hunters.
Yet we are constantly assured of evidence of foxes in Tasmania. I have never doubted the two single LONE incursions at Burnie (May 1998) and Agfest May 2001. The rest I believe is a funding driven mountain made out of a mole hill. Two single lone incursions 3 years apart do not make fox population. The sighting of the lone fox by a respected wildlife authority several days after the Agfest escape was I believe the trigger for the Tasmania Police briefing, problem was as usual with this fox saga… a lot of fiction mixed with the facts. This briefing included the allegations of fox cubs having been imported and released.
Yet the Minister was assured by Tasmania Police in 2001 that this import and release event did not happen. This did not stop the newspaper headlines on June the 5th 2002 bleating “Fox Plot” Fox cubs it said had been imported, reared, and released at four separate locations in Tasmania. Absolute bollocks.The Catalyst program in September 2002 would have had to have been the classic case of mis-reporting. The opening narration from Catalyst 12th September 2002: 2 years ago, a group of environmental vandals committed an unthinkable crime. They hand reared up to 19 fox cubs and released them into the previously fox free Tasmanian wilderness. Television images even included footage of foxes being released out of cages to simulate a release into the Tasmanian wilderness. Catalyst were either lied to, didn’t do any research, or both. These events were well covered in the Hansard of the Legislative Council on the 26th of September 2002. Yet for years after we have local, state, national, and international media exposure on these events… whom by and for what outcome?
The fox cub importation and release theory this time will be put to bed once and for all. Currently I am trying to get an answer from Minister Bartlett and Minister O’Byne on the debacle of this fox cub import and release theory being taught to our children in the essential learnings plans and the lesson plans of the fox task force.
Also put to bed will be the Symmons Plains fox and the Longford fox photo/skin. Remember these two foxes DNA matched as siblings. “We have had a litter” was the statement. Three years later it was admitted by authorities in this forum and the media that the Longford fox/photo/skin was a hoax. That opens a can of worms, because inside the first of these two foxes it was claimed was an endemic Tasmanian long tailed mouse.
Revealing who placed the $5,000 reward at the time in a hunting magazine for a Tasmanian fox will also be very interesting.
The Burnie 2003 “roadkill”, the Lillico cub remains, the mystery cyclist, Old beach blood, The Conara fox (the 56 million dollar fox, that ran across the road when it was already dead) I am sure will all be looked at in detail and reveal some amazing revelations.
This fiasco should never have occurred, if we had been told just the facts, been made aware and informed of the real situation, not this funding driven charade with more and more people climbing aboard the fox gravy train, Tasmania and Tasmanians and more importantly Tasmanian wildlife would be in a better situation than we are presently.
Before the usual exponents of the hard evidence theory jump up and down again, let me again say this… if we found a dead Dingo on the side of a Tasmanian road, or Dingo scats in a field in Tasmania does it prove we have a Dingo population?
Seven years on we still have the evidence of fox, but no fox.
