Phillip island fox still on the run

PHILLIP Island is in uproar, from a native animal management point of view, after a fox crossed over from the mainland and killed 30 chickens at Phillip Island Free Range Eggs overnight on May 8 and 9.

Since then, Phillip Island Nature Parks animal management officers have been engaged in the seemingly impossible task of tracking down the offender.

Night-time stakeouts, forensic analysis, and appeals for help from the community have all been undertaken but so far to no avail.

The person leading the hunt is Phillip Island Nature Parks Vertebrate Pest Program Manager, Stuart Murphy.

He has his theories about how the fox got here, where he or she has been and what is motivating the unwanted visitor.

But one thing seems certain, the new arrival has already left a swathe of damage in its wake.

Speaking on ABC Gippsland radio this week Mr Murphy indicated there had been further deaths of animals on the island including native animals.

He said PINP officers were tracking the fox across the island, finding scats and the remains of prey, and were frankly surprised by the distances covered prompting the question, could there be more than one fox.

“We’re basically staking out a site on Phillip Island where we know the fox frequents and we're getting a lot of information about this individual for from camera footage and from prints that we're picking up in the sand and in the mud,” Murphy said.

“And we've also got a detection dog that's trained to detect fox poo or Fox scats and also the fresh scent. So Jazz is really helpful in fine tuning, I guess, the information that we're finding out about this individual.

“Various times of the night, it's coming through and early morning so that's how we tailor our control program to focus on those key times of the day and early mornings.

“So yes, we're staking out and doing trapping as well. Lots of monitoring in the surrounding areas as well.”

He said foxes were introduced into Australia about 150 years ago from Europe where “they’re quietly loved by the people over there” but that we’ve developed a different attitude here to what has become a serious pest.

“They've done a lot of damage to our native wildlife. A lot of our small mammals have become extinct as a direct result of fox predation.

“Look, I quietly respect the fox. They are survivors, they’ll eat bugs and blackberries when they’re abundant and at other times they'll be preying on local wildlife and livestock as well to feed themselves so yes, they are survivors.

“But our native critters in Australia haven't evolved to deal with such an efficient predator as fox and as a result, they're the ones that usually come off second best.”

Asked if there was only one fox, Mr Murphy said I hope so.

“Well, we're hoping it's just the one and we're testing the biological samples that we've collected from some of the animals that have been killed and the few skats that were found during our surveys. We sent them away to get the genotypes and it's going to give us a bit of a DNA fingerprint on the animal and it's going to tell us whether it's a male or a female, and once again, whether it's just the one animal and we've got our fingers and toes crossed that it's just the one but if it is one, it's covering a lot of territory.

“And this time of the year, normally they would be searching for other foxes to pair up with in the lead up to the breeding season. So that's probably what this one's doing, looking for a partner in the process, you're doing quite a bit of damage to some of our local wildlife and livestock.

And how did the fox get on to the island?

“We're just guessing but we can pretty much rule out the fox coming across the bridge. We've got a specially designed camera that's designed just to pick up foxes. If one crossed over it would send alerts to my iPhone, live alerts with pictures of the animal but there hasn't been any foxes detected since the camera went up several years ago.

“So, we don't know but we pretty much know it hasn't come across the bridge. Another possibility is a natural migration via swimming here. Foxes are pretty adventurous when the times are right, and they can swim reasonable distances in search for food and new territory and other foxes I guess.”

But trying to track the elusive fox has not been easy.

“I'm not saying foxes are an easy nut to crack and this one's proving to be a real challenge to find out where it's laying up during the day.

“I spent last night out, and we take it in turns to stake it out. But yeah, probably over the weekend, Friday or Saturday, we’ll come out again, targeting different times of day. Probably between 2am and sunrise in the morning.”