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For farmers they cost millions of dollars each year. For native animals, they are a death sentence.
But is anything being done to manage foxes?
What’s the problem?
European foxes were introduced to Victoria in the 1870s and from here spread across Australia. They now live across most of Australia.
Foxes favour urban environments, but are also found in fragmented agricultural landscapes.
In urban areas, foxes are a nuisance, harassing domestic animals, raiding rubbish bins and digging up animals.
In rural areas they become a more devastating threat. Thousands of native animals are killed by foxes each year.
Agriculture Victoria estimates the cost of foxes in Australia is about $227.5 million each year, including $17.5 million in losses to sheep production, $190 million in environmental damage and $16 million in cost of management.
Read more: Foxes in the suburbs, what can be done?
Fox populations can also carry rabies and have the potential to spread the disease if it was introduced into Australia.
Associate Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at Deakin Euan Ritchie says foxes are an incredibly adaptable generalist species, which can adapt to almost any environment.
“Around Bendigo you have lots of sort of rural and peri urban areas as well, and foxes are going to do very well in those areas where you’ve got a mix of agricultural land and suburban areas,” he said.
Foxes have probably reached the point where they cannot be eliminated completely from Australia, according to Agriculture Victoria.
What’s being done?
No one really knows how many foxes there are in Australia, let alone in specific regions.
Associate Professor Ritchie says it can be almost impossible to get exact measures on foxes.
As a “cryptic” species, they can be hard to spot. And when they are seen, it can be hard to tell one fox from another.
They are common, Associate Professor Ritchie says, but without catching and collaring, it can be hard to tell just how common.
A Parks Victoria spokesperson said it was not possible to estimate fox populations on its land.
Land managers - public and private - are responsible for fox management on their land.
However, foxes can move easily between public and private land.
Beyond the fox bounty, there is no overarching strategy for control of the species in Victoria.
The bounty offers eligible Victorian hunters a $10 reward for each fox killed.
City of Greater Bendigo, Macedon Ranges Shire and Central Goldfields Shire councils all confirmed they did not have a fox management program in place.
Macedon Ranges Shire Council confirmed it had done surveys within bushland reserves to find out the extent of the fox problem. City of Greater Bendigo said it monitored pest animals across all council reserves, with staff reports and fauna cameras. Central Goldfields did not have a measure of fox populations.
The Department of Environment Land, Water and Planning conducts fox baiting in state forests across central Victoria, using 1080 poison.
Each year, Parks Victoria allows the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia to hunt foxes in about 20 parks and reserves around Bendigo.
In the past, Parks Victoria has conducted baiting in various parks and reserves around Bendigo Parks Victoria Acting District Manager Karen Doyle.
“[Baiting] has not been effective in controlling fox populations as foxes move freely across public and private land,” Ms Doyle said.
“A co-ordinated effort from all land owners and managers is required for an effective program.”
It is likely shooting is ineffective. A 2017 inquiry into the control of invasive animals on Crown Land judged that recreational hunting could not manage Victoria’s invasive animal problem by itself.
However, it did judge that it could be part of the solution in some circumstances.
Ian Dean has been co-ordinating the Ravenswood fox drives for 10 years and shooting foxes for 50 years.
With the Sporting Shooters Association, he participates in fox drives most weekends during winter.
The Shooting Association runs fox drives in various parks and reserves around Bendigo, managed by Parks Victoria.
Mr Dean believes he sees a decrease in fox numbers in the area where the shooters focus their drives.
He estimates the drives have averaged about 150 foxes each year throughout the past 10 years. Last year, numbers were down, and the shooters got only 70 or 80.
Of the foxes the shooters see, Mr Dean thinks they would shoot about 80 percent.
“I think we’re having an effect,” he said.
“I know people say foxes will move in, and they might move in, but it’s a bit like swatting flies in your kitchen: you might have a few flies in your kitchen, but if you swat them you’ll eventually get their numbers down.”
Is it working?
Because foxes can travel between land, regardless of owners, eradicating them in one area can be short term.
“It’s quite difficult to exclude them from areas unless you’re doing that control over a large area for a long time,” Associate Professor Ritchie said.
“If you’ve got what’s considered to be an open population where foxes can come and go as they like, if you shoot a few foxes in an area… they’ll just keep invading.”
Is there a solution?
Foxes are listed as a ‘threatening process’ under the 1988 Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act.
The act states its purpose as to “establish a legal and administrative structure to enable and promote the conservation of Victoria’s native flora and fauna”, and manage processes that might threaten that.
The act was criticised in a 2009 Auditor General’s report for being ineffective.
In 2017 Victoria’s Biodiversity Plan called for a more sustained and strategic management of pest species, promising reviews of the regulatory framework.
But elimination might not be the goal, says Associate Professor Ritchie.
In small parklands, or areas that can be contained, such as islands, they can be managed. In large open spaces, this might not be possible, hesaid.
“The need that we need to be aware of is that we can’t continue to focus invasive species management on single species,” he said.
“We need to manage invasive species and native animals as part of a community and understand how they all interact, so that we can make the best decisions.”