Supporter wrote:Some of the language in the article, sigh.....
A fox mauls an egret at the Hunter Wetlands Centre, the latest in a series of killings in the wetlands.
"the latest in a series" like it's a new and shocking event.
How late in the series of killings by foxes? Somewhere in the hundreds of millions? I'm not as shocked as the article suggests I should be.
And to the 30 people who voted to build a fence.....
On a recent trip up and over the top of Lake Torrens SA I was reminded just how ineffective fences are especially when they are massively long and costly to maintain. .. I'm talking about the Dog Fence, the longest fence in the world and the countless meters of it that was laying flat on the ground.
Vermin proof fences are massively expensive to maintain, the man hours alone make it time prohibitive for most station owners along the fence.
I myself spent a year on a station that had about 50 km of the dog fence through it. One of my jobs once a week was to check and repair / maintain that section. On average I would cover about a third of that section in a 12 hour day, you need to travel slow enough to spot holes that dogs can get through ... small holes, there was always holes from roos, horses, camels, donkeys, cattle and emus along with ongoing projects such as total rebuilds and replacing huge sections of foot netting that had been buried in the sand and rusted away.
Half the fence or more is still made from wood taken locally in the 1880's so it's totally stuffed some of that wood is propped up with droppers that are almost as old.
There are entire sections that once stood 6' tall that are barely half that height now due to sand drift.
Working the fence was actually a pretty cool job, there's the chance to shoot pests along the way, there's traps to set and if you get a dog your a local legend for the week, their not easily trapped.
Fences are no way to keep dogs or foxes in or out.
This is actually part of the dog fence,
Yes that gate is sanded open ... usless cnuts!
And the bottom photo ...What fence ?
- 2016-04-18 21.59.17.png (492.27 KiB) Viewed 3504 times