Foxes: Ivan Dean and the Kitchell report

The Honourable member for Windemere, Mr Ivan Dean (above) discussed the Max Kitchell Review of the Fox Eradication Program (2013) ( Here ) in his address to Parliament on Tuesday October 15, 2013.

Here is an overview of the Kitchell Report and commentary borrowed heavily from Mr Dean’s speech. The entire speech is available on Hansard,

Part 1:

http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/ParliamentSearch/isysquery/d50d30d2-dce6-4f81-a713-3837f3a82518/2/doc/

Part 2:

http://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/ParliamentSearch/isysquery/139b6520-368d-40e3-9ac8-3a21134ad028/1/doc/

(Please be aware links change often may need to search)

Mr Kitchell attributes the lack of broad community support for the fox program to three broad reasons: the use of 1080; scepticism that foxes exist in Tasmania; and the program’s expense. These alone are believed to account for why public support and response has been very low and declining steadily. Baiting in areas where there was no evidence of foxes has not helped the cause of course. Yet, I think there is a very big one he missed. More on this in a minute, after I provide some background and context.

Understandably, Tasmania did not have any home-grown talent in fox ecology or control. That’s obvious for a state that had no foxes. It suggests that involving those that did have skills was more than a little bit important.

So it’s disturbing that Mr Dean explains that the eradication program has refused to listen to people with a different opinion to what they decided was the case early in the piece. The absence of dissenting views by a range of scientists and technicians who have a vast knowledge and background in this area is worrying. Some of the most vocal critics have even worked with the Tasmanian government for a long period of time and their exclusion from the Kitchell report is a red flag.

Eddie Juras, who said yesterday: They are one litter and have been caught in the last hour; they are not as savage as people think they are. I have no problems with them from the wild; you just have to remember that they are very smart; and don’t harm them as they will only bite if they are harmed.

Similarly, the refusal to embrace the offer of Mr Eddie Juras, one of Western Australia’s most skilled field workers with foxes, to confirm the existence of foxes in Tasmania, is rather illuminating. Apparently, some in Tasmania think they could teach Mr Juras a thing or two about foxes.

Despite claiming that scepticism over the presence of foxes in Tasmania was a major distraction and hindrance to the fox program, the Kitchell review panel reiterates many of the the scientific concerns raised by professional experts [ Clive Marks ( TT here ), Jack Kinnear, and David Obendorf ( TT here ) ] that are old hat. Instead of admitting to this, they quietly adopted many of the criticisms and rebadged them as their own. Yep, criticism is a bastard and so is admitting that you have been wrong. Mr Kitchell did his best to make sure that some did not have to have their feelings hurt and faces rubbed in it too much.

The Kitchell report states 63 people were interviewed and, wow, that’s impressive until you look at the way it has been carefully stacked. All concerned supported the program and most had some financial or reputational benefit in doing so; the last being the most obvious. Hence, the majority of people asked are actually in the program or connected to it and gave themselves a big tick apparently. Is this now the new definition of ‘stakeholders’? Given the legions of detractors that exist, this aspect of the report was, to me, a heavily stage-managed process involving a cherry-picked group of happy clappers. Just how an academic snuck in under the radar into a panel ‘independently’ reviewing a program that has been virtually choreographed from a university is anyone’s guess. A brave move indeed Mr Kitchell..

Gratuitous bias aside, when you look at that report in detail they have nonetheless made a number of findings that I accept, even though they have pulled out all stops to be bland in that public service ‘pull all your punches’ sort of way. Nonetheless, one gets the impression that open frustration and white knuckles are disguised by the painful analytical constipation and overly long-winded writing style favoured by ex-government managers … I suspect that most on the panel know the entire fox program has been ill-conceived and that a number of reputations are about to be incinerated. They would probably prefer the next panel do that job.

At least this is the first report that has been quite honest in some key analysis, that is, ever since the first one written by Dr Jack Kinnear. That one put the wind up Tas Inc and they decided to gate-keep all others thereafter in dread of corrosive honesty and integrity. The Tasmanian government did their best to cache the Kinnear review in a deep foxhole. .

A change of government will no doubt see the long knives taken from the mahogany drawer.

Cutting to the chase, in summary of the report and Mr Dean’s comments, there is a lack of evidence concerning what has been taking all these 1080 baits. There have been reports of many baits taken, but no hard evidence about what has been taking them. No baited carcasses have been found. Of course, there are thousands of shooters out there in this state, who are in the bush constantly; they have produced no evidence of foxes either – dead or alive. Obviously they are blind, deaf and dumb and have Braille telescopic sights.

Despite the paper authored by a lab-based Canberra gene jockey, and program leader at the Invasive Species CRC (Dr Steve Sarre) saying that foxes are all over the place in Tasmania, they remain elusive to mortals. Of course, if you believe the fox program, this is because foxes are harder to track down than Osama Bin Laden. Strange then that Uncle Sam bagged their bad guy before the ISB – perhaps they need to try Pakistan too?

Foxes are also much harder to find than a thylacine …

Of course, ‘ecological devastation’ continues to figure as the standard opening salvo in all fox eradication program reviews and Mr Kitchell’s effort did not disappoint us here. It’s a tradition and the sure-fire arm twister, the gun to the head, to engage public support without the need for evidence. As they said at Rorke’s Drift, when you have no ammo, fire off a noisy blank to scare the natives. The logic then goes something like this: apparently the sky could fall, yet it is not because copious 1080 baits are used to prevent the sky from falling. Yet if you ask for evidence, then you must be a conspiracy theorist and the sky will begin falling as a natural consequence. It’s simple and quantum mechanical too. The same logic suggests that 1080 baits are protecting us from invasive hairy nose wombats and most certainly elephants. Sceptics are a clear and present danger for this very reason. Loose lips sink ships.

When I read such dire predictions of ecological devastation, now after 13 years of this well-worn approach, I imagine I am in front of a hypnotist with a fob watch; “Forget about the millions of feral cats, watch the fox, watch the fox…oops, did you miss it? It was there a minute ago.”

It is a mind game. But the clear and unequivocal fact is that there is no evidence of any wildlife, endangered or not – wildlife or sheep, lambs, poultry or anything else – being killed or interfered with by foxes. Of course, Kitchell sidesteps this in the well-practiced public service dance routine; cha, cha, cha as we are scared rigid with fear that evidence is a little too much to ask for when the sky might fall any second. However, if we had foxes there would be some evidence of interference to endangered species, feral animals, poultry, et cetera after 13 years. And if there was the slightest bit of evidence available to show live foxes interfering with Tasmanian biota in this way I would be the first one to jump on board and give them my full support. I’m sure that 99% of Tasmanian would. We’d be out there working with you shoulder to shoulder.

So let me tell you what Kitchell missed, if you have not already guessed. I’ll explain why people are sick and tired of this farce. Let me spell it out to him.

What the Tasmanian government does not seem to get is that people only wanted the sort of evidence that is reasonable to expect for anything government does with our money. It is insulting and patronizing to criticize thinking people for asking for proof. It is pathetic to trot out scare tactics as a substitute for evidence and then blame people for being sceptical. So, please list that as the foremost and official reason why people are jack of this farce Mr Kitchell. Somehow it became normal for our government to shaft and label people for asking reasonable questions. What’s more, people began to think it was their public duty to throw their weight about and attack the public and reverse the onus of proof. In the blind-man’s-bluff of Tasmanian politics we now have to prove that something does not exist. If we can’t, well, the sky might crash down and it is our fault …

For any government that permits this to be an acceptable paradigm we are about to send you into an electoral oblivion that only your grandchildren will see the back of. You have miscalculated how insulted we are as a state Mr Kitchell and you have not done the present government any service in ignoring this. A better strategy would have been to man up and admit that there is more than a little bit of justification for scepticism.

No-one wants to be patronized with that sort of rubbish coming from government. Let’s quickly summarise why we are sick of being told to believe the unbelievable.

We have four carcasses that are supposed to be the real deal and at least five more that are just ‘irresponsible hoaxes’. But there is not one carcass that is not questionable and seriously so. In fact, these long dead foxes stink more than they should. There has been interference with evidence and admissions that many have been moved about. Read the pathology reports; some have died twice. Yet, stories change like the shifting sands of the Sahara and sometimes it is almost a Shakespearian comedy. For instance, the fox skull found in a shed I have referred to previously has gone out of favour with Mr Kitchell’s panel apparently, even though it was once ‘hard evidence’ – not a whisper of it now.

Alas, poor Yorick the fox, they knew him well. But where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?

As for the murder mystery value, Agatha Christie would not turn in her grave, but piss in her coffin with laughter over the plot. Let’s briefly touch on another ripsnorter that is ‘The Fox Blood at Old Beach’. Sure, it could well be the title of a whodunit. There we have the chicken murder, cameras set up, sandpits put in, evidence of domestic dog saliva around the dead chooks, but no other evidence of foxes other than the two spots of blood said to have dropped from a scratch inflicted from barbed wire on a phantom. It was well monitored too, but missed. One camera was in situ there for more than 8 months, because the fox program misplaced a camera that was found by a member of the public. Yet, if you toss fox urine about to attract foxes, as did happen, Sherlock Holmes might well give us all a pro bono DNA tip; the reasons for this farcical foray into forensic foolery was rather, err, too elementary. For those of you still wishing to continue with the game of ‘Not-a-Cluedo’ I have to tell you that Mr Fox did not kill Mrs Chicken with the candlestick in the chook pen. Nope, Dopey sprayed fox piss on the evidence.

Why would any thinking people accept this as evidence? Just what are people in public office thinking when they admonish sceptics for being unsatisfied with this sort of rot? Then for Mr Kitchell to pin the blame on sceptics – really?

Kitchell and others estimate the cost of combating foxes to Australia annually is in the order of $255 million, and they say the cost to Tasmania could be proportionately commensurate with that figure. Well, it could be perhaps, but you have to have foxes to begin with. This government and the past federal government have spent $60 million over about 12 years without any strong, unquestionable evidence of the existence of foxes and they don’t seem to give a rat’s arse about it.

To their credit, the Kitchell review does acknowledge that the FEP’s baiting approach was based on a number of assumptions that proved to be unfounded: first, access all core fox habitat; second, location and killing of foxes in urban and peri-urban areas; and, third, an anticipated baiting completion date by 2014. None of those assumptions are currently being met, and Kitchell makes comment in relation to those points.

It has never been adequately explained how an eradication program can be undertaken without any rigorous measure of baiting efficacy and impact on the target population of foxes. Surely, for a program to have any credibility there should be a way of measuring the outcomes. There has to be some way of measuring what is occurring, but there is no measurement in place here at all. I have asked that question a number of times: how do they measure the success of the program, the baiting program in particular?

The Kitchell review makes this statement on page 8:

The inability of the FEP to demonstrate a reliable way of killing foxes in such areas in Tasmania is a key failing of the current approach.

Of the idea that the period of baiting might go on for anywhere between eight and 20 years, they state that:

This time line would be unacceptable and unlikely to be supported from either government.

The Kitchell report is absolutely right. This just goes to show how farcical the baiting program has been. Reports of foxes were still being made ‘behind baiting lines’. If an area is cleared now, and it is going to take 20 years to complete the baiting program, as was suggested, for goodness sake, it defies common sense as foxes don’t stand still or settle down for 20 years in a red brick house.

‘It is unclear how such a protracted eradication program is expected to be effective, given initial assessments that only a short window of opportunity existed to achieve eradication after the initial claims of fox release in Tasmania’ – that statement was made by Mr. Jack Kinnear, an eminent scientist, who is involved with fox control and who worked with the Tasmanian government at one stage. He said way back in 2003, that if we could not do it in three years, it was all over and there was no chance of doing it, certainly not in 20 years.

The Kitchell report highlights ad-hoc decisions not to bait designated areas due to weather conditions. There is no data on the numbers or proportion of baits taken either. Yet, there has not been any evidence of foxes taking any bait.

Any bait!

The effectiveness of the scat detection dogs was questioned in the report. After baiting, only 53 per cent of the area was searched. There is understandably low morale in dog handler search teams according to Kitchell; severe search fatigue was highlighted. Searching for a ghost is tiring. It is not surprising there was concern over fatigue in some of the areas – and I refer to the South Arm area, the Member for Rumney’s area, where there was great public angst about the baiting that occurred there despite no evidence at all of foxes.

None at all!

But 1080 is chemotherapy and everyone must have some even if cancer free apparently. It’ll make a man of you.

The Kitchell report acknowledges the inadequacy of the DNA scat test supplied in the program to be a real-time tool to detect foxes in the Tasmanian environment. Very lengthy delays over many months have completely negated its usefulness. This was one topic mentioned in a memo from Dr Clive Marks ( Clive Marks Archive, TT here ) to Mr Dean tabled in the Tasmanian parliament a long while back. Such issues now figure in the timid analysis raised by Mr Kitchell that are not new by a long shot. One wonders why Mr (Alistair, the General Manager of Resource Management and Conservation at the Environment Department) Scott was apparently so concerned not to provide Mr Dean with the report when he was quite a few jumps ahead anyway and just reading what he already knew. I suspect that Mr Dean will never be forgiven for being correct and having the courage to say so a long time back when the sheep were busy bleating at him.

Somewhat ironically, the Kitchell report indicates concerns expressed about the utility and accuracy of the DNA scat analysis. In order to confirm, or otherwise, the robustness of the current scat collection and testing processes it is recommended that an independent forensic laboratory be commissioned to review the efficacy of the University of Canberra’s DNA analyses, and field practices in collecting, handling and storing scats. This has been a major and professional criticism that Dr Marks and a group of independent scientists have raised previously – many years ago. They are well-qualified people too and some are in the best position to make such assessments. Unfortunately for the fox program they have actually been involved with real foxes and that disqualifies them from being consulted apparently. At least we are now seeing that the Kitchell report is highlighting the same criticisms raised by other eminently qualified people with regard to scat analysis that have been continuously ignored.

The Kitchell report goes on to highlight the need for a multi-technique approach to fox detection. They recommend looking for fox tracks and use of camera traps with lures. Again, these were matters raised by concerned Tasmanians many years ago as a no-brainer. These comments are exasperating because again this is what many of us have been saying over a long period. There should be no confidence in a program that takes 13 years to conclude the obvious based upon advice provided for free. It’s all on the record too – all on the Tasmanian Times ( David Obendorf, Clive Marks ).

One wonders why we went down the scat DNA track to begin with and why it took so long to realise that it was pretty useless as a monitoring technique. Could it be that the Invasive Animals CRC had a genetics lab … while it sat on and chaired the scientific advisory committee for the program? Because it’s strange that after the dust settles that it comes back to simple and obvious needs that the likes of Mr (Ian) Rist ( David Obendorf ) have been banging on about for a decade. I also suspect that right at the beginning some institutions saw a funding opportunity for speculative and untested technology and put this need before what was in the best interests of Tasmania. Of course the sky would fall unless they got the money – just ask them. This is actually one of the most disturbing issues unaddressed in the Kitchell report, as it suggests that our public institutions think that their funding base, research and profile is far more important than the Tasmanian ecosystems they pretend to serve. Just who did foist the expensive scat DNA distraction on us?

Let’s find out!

While there are many issues raised by Mr Dean, indeed embracing a lot of the sceptics’ concerns that have been quietly vindicated and are beginning to see the light of day in the Kitchell report, we still have a long way to go. It’s even worth reading a compliment paid to Mr Dean in the parliament after his speech. For it is well known that he has held the government to account relentlessly over this matter. Who else would have done so if he had not been there?

I feel that the worm is turning. But I’ll leave the final word to Mr (Paul) Harriss, the member for Huon. There is something very Yes Minister about the dilemma he outlined following Mr Dean’s speech that is very earthy in its logic. But we don’t want earthy logic in Tasmania do we? That would endanger the fox program because it sounds a little bit too much like scepticism. Then the sky might fall. Mr Kitchell would not approve of that, because it might reduce the effectiveness of the baiting campaign that he concludes is ineffective anyway and based upon flawed reasoning and has no measure of efficacy…err…? Now that sounds like the sort of solid gold analysis that got us into the fox eradication program to begin with. But understandably, Mr Kitchell has a hard time actually being skeptical while avoiding the label of sceptic.

Yet, have a read of Mr. Harriss’ comments and remember the days we sent wankers packing. Does anyone remember those days? I hope so, because let’s get ready to do it all over again …

Mr Harriss: Huon.

The other matter that was brought to my attention – and the honourable member for Windermere raised this question some time ago – was with regard to the cache of firearms the department has. Many honourable members were not here when the answer was given to that. It is a massive artillery that could wipe out a foreign country’s army, let alone our fox, and yet I understand that the officers when out searching are not permitted to carry the firearms. You have a Gatling gun locked up in the cache, I presume, and what are you going to do? You confront a fox and then just look him in an eye and say, ‘If you were a decent fox of your word, you would wait here while I go get a gun and blow you away when I get back.’

Mr President, if that is true then the firearms store, a question which was answered by the government some time back, is extensive.

Link to TT story that Mr Dean quotes from:

http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/weblog/article/the-eradication-of-scepticism-and-foxes/show_comments

Penelope Marshall studied creative writing at Queensland University and has a Diploma in Freelance Journalism. In Hobart she has attended courses with local writers and journalists. Penelope studied for a Diploma of Arts in Professional Writing and Editing and has completed an Arts Degree at The University of Tasmania majoring in English and History. Currently she is on the Clarence City Council Cultural History Advisory Committee assisting with local history projects and is project manager for the South Arm Convict Trail project, due for completion this month. Published works include stories in the Convict Lives female factory series, feature stories in 40 Degrees South Magazine and stories on Tasmanian Times. Besides writing Penelope is a carer for sick and injured wildlife and spends a lot of time in the Tasmanian wilderness.

• Photo to go with Comment 31 below:

• Jack in Comments: It comes across loud and clear in this TT article is that much of the criticisms levelled at the fox work in the past (and ignored) has been shown to have merit. I doubt this will make the current crop of experts very willing to change their minds. #24 Just to qualify this undeserved status, I am in regular email contact with some 5 experts on this matter who I bother for advice and I’ve had a bit of field experience with fox baiting. I would not claim expert status though. It bothers me a bit that there seem to be far too many science ‘experts’ implied but none that will take responsibility other than by way of a committee. At least the University of Canberra genetics lab had the balls to make a bold statement. I think they are wrong and their data does not smell right (and I am not the only one), but I can’t see any others busting down the door with arguments to support the overall approach that the Kitchell report seemed to strongly suggest was flawed.

• Jack, in Comments: By the look of the Kitchell report and reading the tea leaves I’d wager that ‘the sceptics’ are going to win the war. That’s a pretty good thing for the Tasmanian community too as it shows that despite the barriers they are effective at picking up where the government and mainstream media fails in offering genuine critical review. The Tas media did not just sell the Kool Aid, they helped make it under supervision. Talk about digging your own media mass grave on this one! The worst thing the sceptics can do is to fight among themselves.