The Sandford Shapeshifters. Calder Rd gets baits

After covering a baited area of about 6 square kilometres or 45% of the South Arm land mass the FEP are moving into the Sandford section of the Peninsula. Here the advertised baiting locations only equate to 10.8 square kilometres of a 60-kilometre square landmass, which works out at only 18%.

With landowners challenging the ability of the program to achieve any positive results and a failure to give them any reasonable evidence of fox presence on their properties I suspect the refusal rate to be fairly high. Landowners have been more than reasonable with the fox baiters’ pushy attitude. FEP officers have been allowed on properties with cameras or dogs to get the proof required to satisfy owners that fox eradication is required. But when no evidence is forthcoming the fox-hunters are then politely told to leave and to take their poison with them.

Why can’t the Manager of this State-wide fox eradication program provide convincing irrefutable proof that these critters exist in the places they target for 1080 bait?

Why won’t they use their trained scent dogs to look for fox scats in their baited areas? Dr. Marks tells us each fox produces up to 6-8 scats a day?

Given that the baited area is less than a fifth of the area how effective would that make continuing with the program at all? According to Dr. Clive Marks report tabled in parliament on the 15th May 2012, “There has never been a compelling scientific argument that the baiting methods used in Tasmania have any clear chance of effecting eradication should a fox population of indeterminate size and distribution exist in Tasmania after more than a decade and certainly if foxes have been present for much longer periods: It is possible that the large scale 1080 baiting in Tasmania is being conducted for no proven likely benefit. It may be a wholly unnecessary undertaking; not one fox bait has been shown to be taken by a fox.”

In 2003, the first fox ecologist to review Tasmania’s fox hunt, Dr. Kinnear warned against relying on poison baiting without verification of effectiveness, no victims, no evidence. Dr. Kinnear was asked by the government to review the Tasmanian Fox Eradication Program. One of his findings was that the time frame for eradication be set at three years from July 2003. It is now nine years on, not once has any kind of exit strategy been mentioned. The full report by Jack Kinnear is worth reading. He also suggested accountability be maintained through periodic external reviews.

It is of great concern to the public that even though the FEP have had professional scientific advice at their fingertips they have continued to ignore this advice and insisted moving onward down the path of the Dark Side why? Why not take the advice of these experienced peers?

Answers from the fox program given by the Government in the Tasmanian Parliament confirm several native species take these buried meat baits – brush-tailed possums, long-nosed potoroos, Tasmanian bettongs and Tasmanian devils.

The effects of 1080 on any animal are abhorrent. To sit with a dying animal knowing there is no cure is a form of torture in itself. Why such an inhumane method of killing is used in 2012 anywhere in Australia is hard to comprehend.
I don’t think I could be any clearer than Dr. Obendorf’s article summarizing the work of Dr. John McIlroy 1080 experimental studies in the early 1980s:

Clinical observations were made on the experimentally poisoned animals.

[i]“Most commonly, affected animals suddenly became hyper-excited, with rapid breathing, bouts of trembling and sometimes periodic circling within their cages. Again, some animals may then recover while others begin to vomit, convulse, or both. With some animals, particularly the eastern native and tiger cats [quolls] and Tasmanian devils, the first symptom is the sudden onset of vomiting.

Convulsions were triggered by disturbance, such as the opening of a door, sudden movement by an observer, or convulsion by a neighbouring animal. In rough order, these symptoms include: restlessness; increased hyperexcitability or response to stimuli; bouts of trembling; rapid, shallow breathing; incontinence [involuntary passing of urine and/or faeces] or diarrhoea; excessive salivation; twitching of the facial muscles; nystagmus (involuntary eyeball movement exposing the whites of the eyes) or bulging eyes with large (dilated) pupils and rapid blinking plus, in domestic cats, discharge of mucus from the eyes); slight lack of coordination or balance; abrupt bouts of vocalisation; and finally, sudden burst of violent activity such as racing around the cage, or biting the cage mesh or other objects. All affected animals then fall to the ground in a tetanic seizure, with hind limbs or all four limbs and sometimes the tail extended rigidly from their arched bodies. At other times the front feet are clasped together, clenched or used to scratch frantically at the cage walls. This tonic phase is then followed by a clonic phase in which the animals lie and kick and ‘paddle’ with the front legs and sometimes squeal, crawl around or bite at objects. During this phase the tongue and penis may be extruded, the eyes rolled back so that only the whites show and the teeth are ground together. Breathing is rapid but laboured, with some animals partly choking on their saliva. Finally such animals begin to relax, breathing more slowly and shallowly and lying quietly with the hind legs still extended but apparently semi-paralysed (paresis).”[/i]

Absolutely horrific. I struggle to understand why these experiments were allowed or condoned by the relevant bodies in the first instance but given that they were the results should have been clear enough that this toxin should be wholly banned. There is no place for such inhumane practice in our society today. To inflict it upon our innocent pets and wildlife without any justification whatsoever is criminal.

References:

Kinnear, JE (2003) Eradicating the Fox in Tasmania: A Review of the Fox Free Tasmania Program ABN: 9225-6856-131]

Marks, CA (2012) Tasmanian Foxes: Independent Analysis. http://www.oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php/article/how-to-eradicate-foxes-in-2003
McIlroy, JC (1981) The Sensitivity of Australian Animals to 1080 Poison I. Intraspecific variation and Factors affecting Acute Toxicity. Australian Wildlife Research 8, 369-383.

McIlroy, JC (1981) The Sensitivity of Australian Animals to 1080 Poison II. Marsupial and Eutherian Carnivores. Australian Wildlife Research 8, 385-399.

Obendorf, D.L. (2006): Foxes, Quolls, Devils and 1080 (2) http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php/article/obis1