Sympathy for the Devil

As the devil’s numbers fall, a rapacious predator is waiting to inherit its niche. At midnight in a cold field south of Launceston, Fox Task Force members Oliver Breeze and John McConnell begin yet another search for an animal that hides as well as it hunts. Several days ago, a young boy reported seeing a fox here. Now the spotlight swinging across the dark paddocks catches the glinting eyes of possums, wallabies, quolls and wombats in the midst of their nightly foraging. But, as on countless other nights, there’s no sign of the so-called “white diamond” - the unmistakable gleam of a fox’s eyes. Tasmania’s wealth of wildlife, which amazes visitors from the mainland and from overseas, owes much to the absence of foxes. But in an act some are calling eco-terrorism, police believe up to 20 European red fox cubs were brought into Tasmania in February 2000, reared and released - probably for hunting - near Longford, south of Launceston. Thirty-three native species - including endangered birds and endemic fauna like the Tasmanian bettong - are judged to be at very high risk from an established fox population. “People who haven’t lived on the mainland haven’t seen the destruction foxes cause,” says Chris Emms, manager of the task force set up to find the foxes. There have been 110 quality sightings, and scats and tracks have been found. But despite hundreds of hours spotlighting and the laying of 13,000 toxic baits, only two fox carcases have been found: one shot by hunters in 2001, and another run over last October at Burnie on the state’s north coast.

Some farmers have refused to have the baits laid because of controversy surrounding the toxin they contain, 1080, which can kill dogs and is widely used (in higher doses) to kill the native possums and wallabies that feed on seedlings in plantation forests. But others simply don’t believe foxes have arrived, despite the sightings, the carcases, and warnings that an established population could see lamb production fall by 10%. Two station hands working for Gwendolyn Adams saw a fox 18 months ago on her farm near Perth, a hot spot of sightings south of Launceston. She says the pair were treated locally “like pilots claiming to have seen a ufo - they got a lot of stick about it.” Farmer Colin Lindsay, who’s seen a fox twice, says the problem is that apart from the task force, no one’s out looking: “We need to enlist some die-hard bushmen and hunters who don’t mind walking in ditches and getting on their knees to look in culverts.” But local deer hunter John Upton says most hunters wouldn’t participate. Has he ever seen a fox? “I’ve never been that drunk,” he says. The task force has had to deal with plenty of skepticism, false leads and pranks, such as a fox nailed to a cross, its gut missing so tests on its origin were impossible. It’s even been accused of planting the Burnie fox to ensure its funding continues. Yet there’s no time to waste, says Emms: “If we wait for everyone to see a fox, then you can guarantee it will be way too late to do anything about it.”

The 22-member task force is also battling inadequate funding, which means the 300,000-hectare area identified as likely fox habitat has been baited only once, instead of the target three times, in the past year. While the Tasmanian Conservation Trust rates an established fox population as a bigger disaster for Tasmania than the high-profile issue of clear-felling native forest, “the momentum has definitely gone,” says Craig Woodfield, the Trust’s representative on the task force’s steering committee. “If the state government were really serious about it, they would be putting in at least twice the amount.” The Bacon government has provided $A1.2 million a year over two years and, says a spokesman for Environment Minister Bryan Green, “the skepticism’s only in the pubs - the government is convinced.” Federal Environment Minister Kemp says while the fox in Tasmania is “a threat to biodiversity of national importance,” fox control is a state matter, though the federal government has spent $A2.6 million on national research into a virus that would render the animals sterile. But the federal government has declined a request to match the state government’s direct assistance, limiting its contribution to $A400,000 a year. The lack of funding has wildlife experts shaking their heads. “It’s bizarre,” says devil researcher Menna Jones, “because with foxes we could see the extinction of 15-20 species, and the devil disease probably won’t cause one extinction.”

The fox hunt has never been more urgent: devils are considered a buffer against foxes, eating their cubs and competing for food, and their falling numbers could give Vulpes vulpes the foothold it needs to out-compete Tasmania’s other predators, from eagles to quolls. What’s more, if an expanding fox population keeps depleted devil numbers low, the species will become genetically less diverse, leaving it more vulnerable to future disease outbreaks and possible extinction. And without devils to remove dead and sick animals from the system, diseases could make inroads on other species, too. “You couldn’t script it any worse than this,” says Craig Woodfield. At stake is more than the fate of a tourist attraction - on the fortunes of the unique devil could hang the entire balance of an ecological refuge found nowhere else on the planet.