Image: Seen any foxes? As published in the Hobart Mercury. ( Kudelka with permission. www.kudelka.com.au )
An independent scientific review says it’s found no credible evidence for foxes living and breeding in Tasmania, even though there’s been a decade-long multi-million dollar program to eradicate them.
The international team of seven scientists is led by the man who helped start the eradication program, Dr Clive Marks.
‘Here is an example where you can propose that something exists when it doesn’t,’ Dr Marks said, ‘and if you follow that narrative with a suitable amount of media and spin doctoring you can get a good proportion of people believing it.’
The team is disputing much of the evidence—including thousands of sightings, several dead foxes and DNA tests—that was used to justify the fox eradication program.
It’s now published its report online, and is also publishing papers in several international science journals.
The existence of foxes in Tasmania has been the basis of heated public debate and media speculation since 2001, when it was alleged three hunters brought up to 19 fox cubs into the island state, raised them and set them free so they could be hunted.
Documents obtained under Freedom of Information show that a police task force never found any evidence at all for the claims, and closed the case in mid-2001.
‘On investigation it became abundantly clear that the original informant had only passed on part of that information, most of which was hearsay and gossip,’ the 2001 report said.
‘The remaining information seems to have come from P&WS [Parks and Wildlife Service] personnel who have relied on rumour and probably “guesswork”. None of the information was confirmed and some was found to be highly suspect.’
Despite that, Tasmanians have been told over the years that that event did happen. It was the basis for a massive baiting program that covered more than a million hectares of the state.
‘We took action in 2002 when three litters of fox cubs were brought back to the state by people who were identified, but were not able to be charged,’ former Police Minister David Llewellyn told the Tasmanian Parliament in 2006.
‘Certainly the police followed these issues up. I am convinced that those litters were distributed; one in the Longford area, one down the east coast and one south of Oatlands.’
‘It was on that basis we established the effort to try to rid the state of foxes.’
Mr Llewellyn, now an Opposition MP, said despite the original police report, he is still convinced it happened.
‘There were senior people within the Department of Parks and Wildlife who gave me that advice and they were absolutely certain of the fact,’ he said.
‘I initiated a police investigation, which I’m not sure how thoroughly it was done, but there wasn’t enough evidence to follow up from a legal point of view.’
However, one of the hunters named in police documents and cleared by the investigation said he was shocked that anyone still believes the story.
‘I didn’t even understand it back then. It was like, “you’ve got to be joking, that’s absolute bulldust”,’ he said.
‘I mean, there are no foxes in the state. There’s a lot of hunters in the state and they don’t see them. So the people you must be talking about must be the Fox Task Force. They’re the ones who see foxes, nobody else.’
In fact, the Fox Task Force, now the Fox Eradication Program, hasn’t seen, shot, trapped or shown that it’s poisoned a live Tasmanian fox either.
What the fox program has produced as physical evidence for foxes are four already-dead foxes and a skull provided by the public, a DNA sample found in a chicken coop, two sets of paw prints and 56 apparent fox scats.
These items, though, are all being questioned by the new review of the fox program.
‘The difficulty this program had, was it used a great deal of propaganda and public relations to get across its message, but it failed to actually pass the first test which was the onus of proof test,’ said Tasmanian veterinary pathologist Dr David Obendorf.
‘So what we’ve got is a situation where the threat has always been a real threat for Tasmania, but the presence of evidence is completely zero.’
From Background Briefing, here, where you can access all background and related links …
A Transcript of the Background Briefing Report will be added when it is available.
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• Tasmanian Times has published articles on foxes for more than a decade (most questioning; some defending the FEP), in the belief that Mainstream Media in Tasmania ( and nationally other than Sam Bungey in The Global Mail ), was failing in proper analysis; once hosting a $5000 reward for a freshly-killed Tasmanian fox. All those articles are grouped under the Categories, David Obendorf, HERE; Clive Marks, HERE … dozens of them; the frustration at MSM exemplified in this report from September 2010: FOXing the facts at the ABC. An extract: I chose to put my full argument, analysis and conclusions on-line ( lock, stock and barrel, TT: The Fox that wasn’t there? ) to avoid any need for confusion. With everything there to be read, the cyber-cow to be milked at will, you might think that the rest would be easy. But it took little more than a week for the media to hoist upon its own petard. The main problem was, they did the same to my arguments, adding to confusion when I sought to allay it. The news media template for science reporting is well known. It seems to demand one of either broad category. There are scientific stories that offer opportunities to announce that a breakthrough or a world first is at hand – however spurious the claim. Then there are scientists who come out to slam something. The news media loves a good slamming. I have always thought that the ABC traditions of great science journalism would filter into news reporting. I had always trusted Aunty with my research in the past and she had never failed me.
Until now.
• Dr Warwick Raverty, in Comments: I listened to ‘Background Briefing’ on ABC Radio National this morning. All I can say is that advocates of both sides of the argument sounded sincere. Before going into my views on whether or not the expenditure of around $50 million on a Fox Eradication Program in Tasmania is justified, it is worth reminding ourselves of an important principle of logic – you cannot conclusively prove a negative. In other words, you can never prove the lack of existence of something, whether it is live foxes in the wild in Tasmania, visits of extra terrestrials to Earth, or the non-existence of ghosts. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. What one can say in the absence of evidence is that the positive is highly unlikely in the universe as we know it. So, to summarise the arguments that I heard this morning …
• The scientists’ forensic examination of the evidence is on their WEBSITE, here. TWITTER, @Tasmanianfoxes
• Tasmanians For Transparency: Call for Integrity Commisssion investigation into fox scandal
EARLIER ON TASMANIAN TIMES:
• Can the Fox (Leopard) change its spots?
• Tasmanian Foxes? World study finds serious deficiencies …
• Jan Davis: Tasmanian farmers alarmed at Port of Melbourne alienation
