Was Tasmania riddled by foxes?

On 20 November 2004, the Secretary of DPIWE (now DPIPWE) wrote a letter to the Mercury newspaper expressing his ‘disappointment’ that ‘there are still those refusing to recognise the value of our fox free taskforce’.

Mr Kim Evans wrote of the ‘pool of evidence that foxes were present in the state’ ; ‘more than 600 sightings; two fox carcasses (one of which contained a native species found only in Tasmania); independently identified fox droppings and identified fox footprints’.

‘Our fox taskforce has known that fox baiting is unlikely to produce a [fox] carcase. Our fox taskforce has not let this deter it, however.’

‘The results of [fox baiting] have been a dramatic decrease in reported sightings where the eradication has been undertaken. A total of 336 reported sightings were received in 2002; 228 in 2003; and just of 100 this year [2004].’

In 2004 Evans suggested that fox baiting was responsible for a ‘dramatic decrease’ in reported sighting, yet just two years later DPIPWE reports a road-killed fox cub at Lillico, suggestions that another fox had killed many chickens in a suburb of Hobart [ Old Beach] and yet another fox had been run over on Glen Esk road near Conara.

So what did the fox experts make of that 2006 spike in Tasmanian fox occurrence?

Had more foxes come into Tasmania?

Had the original foxes thought to have been smuggled in between 1999 and 2001 – as Minister Llewellyn asserted – reproduced?

What was the explanation?