Out-foxing the fox

DURING a visit to the Moonlit Sanctuary Wildlife Conservation Park at Pearcedale last week I fully realised the impact foxes have on Australian wildlife.
Many, in fact most Australians, would be surprised at the number of small nocturnal bush animals and birds living in the Australian bush before European settlement.
Loss of habitat has been defined as one of the main reasons for the demise of our animal life, but foxes, feral dogs, and cats, have devastated animal life even where habitat has been maintained.
New thinking is protecting and rebuilding large bush areas, but proprietor of the Moonlit Sanctuary Michael Johnson told me that releasing animals back into the bush was a major challenge because of foxes.
Even the dingo is expected to be lost to the Australian environment because of inbreeding with domestic dogs.
Another thought is what sort of wild animal will be the result when some of the dog genes introduced to Australia are crossed with the fast and wily dingo?
Animal conservationists working to save these species should be supported when and wherever possible, but governments need to be thinking and acting more by getting rid of feral animals that prevent the healthy procreation of our native animals.
A few weak rules exist to control cats and dogs, but foxes are given free rein, more so since the fox bounty was taken away.
However, the bounty failed to stop the threat to wildlife from foxes, despite nearly 100,000 being shot.
They now breed in areas where shooting is prohibited, so other eradication methods are needed.
This may require a costly system of search and destroy that involves teams of rangers in the field.
A fox seen across the field or even in suburbia can be a likeable little animal.
Likeable or not it is wiping out our own lovable native creatures and must be stopped.
What value do we place on those animals indigenous to the Australian bush for hundreds of years?
See On the Land, in this week’s edition.