Fox control and management

 

 

 Predation by the introduced feral fox is a major threat to the survival of native Australian fauna.

The European fox Vulpes was introduced to Australia in the 1860’s and 1870’s for recreational hunting, and rapidly spread from these first releases around Melbourne.

Foxes are now the most wide-spread carnivore in the world. Feral foxes are now abundant in all states and territories except Tasmania. The fox is now widely distributed throughout the southern half of Australia. PIRSA

In our area, the presence of foxes is a real threat to the survival of some of our native animals, including ground-dwelling natives such as Reptiles, invertebrates, native rodents, possums, ground-nesting birds such as our Chestnut Quail-thrush and up to the larger ground dwellers our Mallee Fowl.  Foxes are also linked with the spread of some of our region's declared pest weeds such as the Boxthorn and also linked to the transmission of sarcoptic mange through the Northern Hairy Nosed Wombat population.

Overall, there is nothing positive that the introduced fox contributes to our environment. Some suggest that they keep the Rabbit population in check and scientific reports suggest they are found in the same areas primarily as rabbits with foxes being the rabbit's main predator, however, there are numerous other methods to manage rabbits so the small value they may add to rabbit control is vastly outweighed by the damage, disease and destruction that they reek over our natural areas.

Of the threatened species listed under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, foxes are considered a threat to:

• 14 species of birds
• 48 mammals
• 12 reptiles
• 2 amphibians.

All of the images in this post are from the wildlife cameras that we deploy. Every wildlife camera that we have deployed in the field has captured images of foxes.

 

 FOX CONTROL and MANAGEMENT

Fox control really is a regional or community-wide requirement as the destruction of one fox just opens the void for another fox to enter the area. A collaborative approach by multiple property owners, under the management of the Regional Landscape Board, and Landcare would be the best outcome.

One of the programs that we are involved in, is reporting: Feralscan or FoxScan. These are tools for reporting of foxes, management activities undertaken and photos of the impacts of foxes. We also list many fox sightings on the SA BDBSA.

At 16.6 have three destruction options open to us

1. Poisoning (1080) Sodium monofluoride, commonly known as 1080 is used to poison foxes.  We use both 1080 buried baits or the use of CPE’s
2. Trapping with cage fox traps. This is not a practical control for wide-scale fox management. It is labour intensive and to ensure that there are no off-target trapping or animal welfare concerns it requires us to be present in the area when traps are set
3. Shooting, again very labour intensive and much of the 16:6 property cannot be driven ( spotlighting vehicle) While shooting is not out of scope it is not the preferred method we will use.

Baiting is our most successful control.

1080 is an odourless, tasteless white powder that is diluted with water to specific concentrations for the targeted species. It is used for poisoning foxes in a meat bait and is preferred as most native Australian animals have a tolerance to the poison, making it safer to use. We also use 1080 in a device called a CPE a Canid pest ejector ( link to CPE) which is a sprung mechanical device with an attractant and a dry meat lure head.

When the lure head is taken by the fox the device ejects a lethal toxin into the mouth of the fox

 

A camera case study.

Note, that I reference Spur Winged Plover above. These are more commonly called Masked Lapwings or simply Lapwings.

 

References

SA Fox management  - PIRSA

Fox fact sheets - Link

National Code of Practise - Foxes