Tony Peacock
The Tasmanian Government has released some further information today on fox scat samples collected in the State. They serve as reminder of what’s at stake. Foxes have been introduced to Tasmania from time to time for well over a century, but never established. Some people, Tim Flannery is one, have speculated that Tasmanian devils prey on fox cubs, which has stopped the fox becoming established and doing the damage they’ve done on the mainland. Of course, the Tassie devil is now in serious threat itself, but we probably couldn’t rely on the devil providing a biological control for foxes in any case. Since about 2000, there has been a concerted effort to control an outbreak of foxes in the Island State. We are not sure how they got there, or how many there are, but any fox population getting established is a issue. Naturalist Nick Mooney has likened the potential extinction impact of the fox in Tasmania to that of the last ice age. Unfortunately, many of the species in the “critical weight range” for fox predation are little known to most Australians. Even in Tasmania, the average person’s experience of these species is often only as part of the abundant roadkill. Read more here
