They got only one cat.
These animals do have feelings.
However, they don’t belong on this continent.
The native fauna is ill-prepared to deal with their depredations.
And the only way to save many species of native Australian wildlife is to create areas that are free of foxes and cats.
The only way to do that is to kill them.
They shouldn’t be tortured when they are killed. A single killing shot will do.
Hi,
We have a huge problems with introduced feral animal, cats & foxes are just the tip of the iceberg. Rabbits, dogs and cane toads just to mention a few. I agree a well aimed shot is better than 1080 poison bait where the animal suffers.
What they are doing in Tasmania right now is insane.
How many devils and quolls are they killing as collateral damage in their fox baiting scheme?
The problem with poison baits is they aren’t very species specific.
Poisoning wolves and coyotes was very common in the West. They’d lace carcasses of beef and venison, and they’d kill scores of other animals.
Who knows how many dogs have been killed by 1080 baits set for coyotes?
this is stupid, and wrong, let nature take it’s corse, don’t force it by killing innocent animals.
This has nothing to do with nature.
Foxes and cats didn’t wander into Australia on their own volition.
They were introduced to an ecosystem that never had to deal with predators such as these.
And they are destroying species after species.
Sometimes, if you actually do care about the environment, you have to kill animals to save others.
The animal rights movement, if it continues to oppose these sorts of controls, will see mass extinctions around the globe, and the only animal that will be left in many areas–especially islands– are those we introduce.
Are you trying to hire this guy to kill animals for you?! sicko….. i disappointed and disgusted in the human species.
So the Australians should just let the foxes kill every native wildlife species?
Are you some kind of British nationalist who wants only British animals to exist in the Commonwealth countries?
Interesting colours. Some of these foxes look almost like American cross foxes…
Australian red foxes have an interesting geneaology; they are descended from British foxes, which are in turn heavily hybridised with Russian, German, Danish, French and Scandinavian foxes.
I think it’s just the effect of molting.
Most British foxes don’t have unusual colors, but a black one sometimes shows up.
Most of the red foxes in the Eastern United States and southeastern Canada are actually direct descendants of red foxes from Britain, so they don’t have any cool colors either. Most of the eastern United States had either no red foxes or very few red foxes when the English colonies were founded. In the seventeenth century, fox hunting was a big deal among the landed classes in England, and the newly landed classes in Virginia and Maryland imported foxhounds to have riding to hounds hunts. However, the gray foxes that were very common took to the trees when the hounds got after them, which ruins the chase.
So they British colonists imported red foxes by the scores and released them. These mixed with native red foxes, but the bulk of American red foxes in the East are British. The ones in the West and in boreal parts of North America are almost entirely native reds.
I`m actually surprised at the uniformity of colour of the foxes in the picture. Here I see quite a range of colours, including some very pale ones, and some really brownish.
Elizabeth
Founder effect.
the furor over the feral goats and pigs on the Calif channel islands is another case –allowing someone to shoot them is politically incorrect, so removal becomes ten tmes harder. Same thing with feral goats in Hawaii. People who aren’t actually impacted or who don’t see the actual impact on native animals find the emotional “BAMBI” appeals convincing. They never recognize just how hard it is to remove an established feral species. And yes, that applies to feral horses and donkeys, who may have a place as a historical part of the “west”, but NOT at the expense of native animals.
Peggy Richter
thats just sick i hate you alll
So what you’re actually telling me is that you hate all the native Australian wildlife that foxes kill.
I don’t hate foxes, but you hate the native fauna of an entire continent!
You guys are stupid foxes are beautiful and adorable creatures. You shouldn’t kill then its just wrong no one appreciates it . Stop killing them Australia can build a foundation to help breed their precious animals or just let nature work but there’s no reason to kill foxes OR cats.
Are you calling me a stupid fox?
no i meant to put a period there but i did call you stupid because you are
how can you do such a horrible thign and your PAID??????!!!!! stupid jerk
Perhaps we should inform you about the real ecological threat that introduce red foxes pose to native wildlife in Australia:
Please read these links:
1. http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/pestsweeds/RedfoxApproved.pdf
2. http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/wildlife/animals/exotic/fox.html
If you read these links and still think fox shooting in Australia is the worst thing ever, then you’re going to have to explain to me why you hate Australian wildlife so much.
I don’t hate the wildlife there i just think its totally wrong for you to kill foxes
Two options are mutually exclusive, I’m afraid.
Please read the links I have provided, and educate yourself.
You’re a sick bastard. Why would you kill foxes? They never hurt you. You dont deserve to live your sick pathetic life. I hope you rot.
BECAUSE THEY KILL NATIVE WILDLIFE. In Australia, they aren’t native, and the Australian wildlife didn’t evolve with fox predation. Fox and feral cat predation is causing population crashes with several species.
In Eurasia and North America, they may be hunted because in most of their range, they have not predators and very easily overpopulate, reducing the number of certain small mammals and birds. It’s a phenomenon know as mesopredator release. Foxes are mesopredators that are normally kept in check by larger predators, like wolves. You kill off the wolves and the foxes will overpopulate. Controlling fox numbers is a sound management practice.
You may not like it, but it’s a sound management practice.
I think your blog got hijacked by junior high schoolers. Or Furries.
LOL
It burns, it burns! Make the stoopid stop!
Someone is trolling Scottie Westfall today.
Or fox ‘otherkin’.
agreed alex
I think you guys need to grow up and stop thinking with your emotions.
Use reason. It’s your friend.
All animals have emotions, but only ours has managed to make it to outer space– because we used our superior gifts of reason.
I provided FACTS for my position.
You chose to call people names and to use emotionally charge invective.
That’s not how one argues, my friend.
And for that reason, you both look like fools.
People are laughing hysterically at you right now– because you’re acting like flighty sheep.
Another fact: http://www.parks.tas.gov.au/file.aspx?id=6536
It’s easy to engage in hysterical attacks on people.
It’s much harder to think.
Can you tell me why you think foxes are so awesome that they can kill all the quolls, bettongs, and pademelons?
Are they no less awesome?
You can find red foxes all over Eurasia, North America– even in North Africa.
But you can’t find those species anywhere else, and the foxes are killing them off.
If nature wants those species dead then let them be dead! Mother nature has her own way of doing things there’s no reason to interfere. And yes those creatures are less awesome and foxes are adorable and very perky and are just amazing.
Did nature bring the red fox to Australia?
NO!
Who brought the red fox to Australia?
The English settlers!
Australian fauna has evolved without predation from animals like foxes for a very long time years. It’s true there were marsupial predators, and some, like the quolls, still exist. But the vast majority of Australian predatory mammals had gone extinct by the time Europeans came there.
That means these animals evolved without fox-like predators, and the foxes were able to devour them. They were even easier prey than introduced rabbits, and the rabbit population both sustains and advances the fox population.
Nature had nothing to do with foxes being in Australia. Nature has nothing to do with mesopredator release, either. These things are the result of human actions, and the only rational thing to do is a fox cull.
I guess you think foxes deserve special protection over all species, but that’s your business.
I happen to like biodiversity.
So they should be culled.
Another piece of important information:
http://www.maninnature.com/Management/Conservation/WConservation1c.html
*Sigh.* Look, commentators above me. It’s a shame the foxes have to be killed, but the simple fact of the matter is that protecting rare or endangered wildlife is more important than protecting an invasive species that is dirt common in its native range.
I love cats, and it makes me sad that the feral cats in Australia have to be killed. But I recognize that it just isn’t feasible to convert them all into housepets, for a multitude of reasons. Similar deal with the rabbits that are driving out native herbivores in Australia.
Cats and foxes are beautiful, yes, but they don’t belong Down Under, because Australia has its own native beauties.
how much money do you make a year?
Why on earth are you asking questions like this? It shows you’re just here to troll.
Please go elsewhere. Your comments will not longer be approved.
Well done I say! Im back living on a few acres at mums place in the country. She no longer has cats because she wants the native wildlife to come back strong – and it has. There are Tawny Frogmouths, Blue Wrens – all sorts of beautiful native animals. But there are also rabbits by the dozen, holes in the ground everywhere from burrowing. Plants being destroyed continually. This morning I put her little pomeranian out in the dog yard, only to go back outside 10 minutes later to find the biggest fox I’ve ever seen meters from the yard behaving highly aggressively towards the little pomeranian and not even remotely afraid of me. Boyfriend coming over tonight with the shot gun. Im lining up my firearms safety course. No its not the feral animals fault they were brought here, and they need to be taken down with as little suffering as possible. But the fact remains they NEED to be taken down.
For everyone screaming cruelty, if you dont like it – dont look. Your precious natives are suffering much crueller deaths at the hands of feral animals than a bullet.
Maybe next time you should post a few pictures of what a lamb looks like after a fox has gotten at it. You know.. face half chewed off, stomache contents showing. Maybe a living sheep thats been mauled and needs to be shot to save it from a slow and painful death.
People might feel a bit differently when they see the cruelty and waste of a fox.
Mmm I love the posts regarding complaints about how foxes should be treated superior simply based on their familiarity and looks. Foxes are certainly neat and lovely creatures, but just so are the native animals you have named. Invasive species are bad news indeed, so it’s really nice to know that there are actually people like you who care and are dealing with the situation in a civil manner (in accords to killing the foxes at cats quickly and cleanly.)
I seriously cannot get to understand the ignorance of the uninformed “bambi crusade” Unfortunately I do not have the time, but would someone like to research a “cost estimate” of “saving a fox”,
The cost of a capture team, cages , feeding, quarantine,shipping,red tape, etc.
All within the same effectiveness of a fox cull, start a “buy 1, get 1 free, own a fox campaign”
Retrieverman, i take my hat off to you sir, and salute you with the utmost respect, you have a clear understanding of the balance of nature, and are trying you best to heal the wounds created by ignorant human intruders, i hope time is still on your side.
I hope you guys are selling the pelts. It would be a shame to let all that lovely fur go to waste.
Foxx said it best in his closing statement when he said that you have a “clear understanding of the balance of nature” and the wounds were created by human intruders.
I own a company called Your Being Tailed, we make costume pieces, leather skirts and kilts, ears and most importantly super strong tails. Our pieces are reclaimed materials, roadkill, over population or invasive species removal. I fully understand the vicious words towards you as I get them quite frequently. Most of the time the harmful comments come from people that drive gas guzzling suv’s that are wearing pounds of make-up and wearing faux fur! Funny how one outfit causes more off gassing of dioxins into the environment than every fox pelt on the planet.
Unfortunately my Good Sir, the sheeple of today can no longer think in reason and facts, they live in emotions and that will kill us all. .
Karma! You’re a low life human being!
It’s nice that you don’t care about native wildlife in Australia, because cats and foxes are cute.
Foxaboos and Cataboos are worse human beings, because they’re ecologically illiterate and allow ecological massacres to occur because of their bleeding-heart selfishness.