Tasmania has a fox problem. At least, we have if the media are to believed. Or the experts on the Mainland, who say that if we would only believe the problem was real, it would be. Sounds like they've got a ex-Shrink or two on their staff. The fact that there hasn't been one single fox found in the wild since the multi-million-dollar task force was formed 8 years ago to combat the problem doesn't sway them - the latest result of all that wasted money is the supposed discovery that 'environmental vandals' deliberately released 20 or so cubs, though if you're asking why anyone would want to do that, you'd probably be best asking the loonies at this weekend's Psychic Expo in Launceston - you'd probably get a halfway-believable answer, which is more than the authorities have come up with so far. Not to mention that quarantine procedures are so tight in Tassie that you can't even get an apple past the guys doing the checking, yet somehow someone managed to get an entire truckload of yowling, frightened, smelly baby animals through? Was Blind Freddy rostered on at Quarantine that day, with his iPod at full blast and a peg on his nose?
Are there foxes here? Well there been over a hundred sightings, but in this humble writer's opinion that's nowhere near as many sightings as Tasmanian Tigers (and they're listed as completely extinct), just short of the number of sightings of UFO's, and slightly more than the number of sightings of Elvis in Wrest Point Casino's gaming lounge. We've been told for decades that even if there are still Tigers out there, unless they number sufficient for a viable breeding population, ie about five hundred, then they're doomed anyway. Yet somehow one inkling of a possibility of a remote chance of a prospect of an outside chance of there being a fox or two somewhere in the state, somehow amounts to a plague. Yes, the sky is certainly falling, Foxy Loxy - in fact, I think its already hit some people on the head.
Links
Parks & Wildlife Service
Department of Primary Industries and Water
National Geographic
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