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In jest, outspoken fox sceptic and Launceston alderman Ivan Dean said the Bruny Island fox may have been blown off course while it was surfing at Sandy Bay.
“But in all seriousness you have to ask, ‘What is going on?’ The scat was found 14 months ago, yet the results are only made public in the lead-up to the State Budget,” Ald Dean said.
“If the fox is such a problem in Tasmania, the program to get rid of them should be carried out with a lot more urgency.”
The scat was found on May 21, 2009 during phase two of last year’s Scat Collection Survey.
Tasmanian authorities received the results of the scat test from the University of Canberra’s Institute for Applied Ecology last week.
Former taskforce adviser Nick Mooney said he suggested fox authorities go back through the scat collection process to ensure a labelling mistake had not been made.
The taskforce said 12 fox-positive scats had now been identified from phase two of the survey.
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ABC Radio:
Expert turns nose up at fox evidence
Evidence of foxes found on Bruny Island in Tasmania’s south has called into question the reliability of testing procedures.
A scat collected at North Bruny Island last year, returned a positive test for fox DNA last week.
There have been 56 positive fox scats around the state.
Foxes are thought to have first arrived in Tasmania in the late 1990s, after one was seen running from a freight container at a north-west port.
Fox Eradication Program manager Alan Johnston says the location of the latest scat is remote and it is unlikely a fox could have swum across to Bruny Island.
However Mr Johnston says there is nothing to suggest the evidence is anything but genuine.
“We have had previous sighting reports of foxes on Bruny Island which we’ve investigated and it’s also fair to say that parts of Bruny Island are ideal fox habitat,” he said.
The discovery of the fox scat has led to calls for greater scrutiny of the evidence being provided to prove the presence of foxes in Tasmania.
Wildlife veterinarian David Obendorf says Bruny Island is only accessible by boat and it is unlikely a fox could have swum to the island
“That’s an astonishing detection and I am really amazed,” he said.
Dr Obendorf says the evidence provided by the fox task force suggests the presence of foxes as far north as Boat Harbour and as far south as Southport.
He says the discovery of a fox scat on Bruny Island raises questions about the veracity of evidence used to prove foxes are in the state.
“It holds a whole lot of things up into question and of course my concern is it holds up the question how definitive that DNA test is, whether there’s been a confusion in the location of that scat,” he said.
