NIIMBY

[Lazarus]

The "Now It's In My Back Yard" brigade have discovered foxes are not just a pretty little doggy looking furby.

Same as with deer, they didn't give a flying until they started finding them in their garden.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... lora-fauna

[animalpest]

Foxes are not really increasing in numbers across cities. Its more likely that people are more aware.
I have been doing fox control in urban areas for 25 years. They can be managed without baiting.

Foxes are a highly adaptable species that can live on almost anything. It doesn't take too much bush (if any) for them to have shelter and that can include under buildings, cars, in drains etc. In one year, we had over 30% of urban foxes trapped had bandicoots in their stomach. So they can devastate small populations of native fauna.

The secret is not target any particular cohort, such as young or inexperienced foxes. If all you can do is kill the young foxes, they are likely to die anyway. Some say that females are the hardest to catch. If you dont get breeding females, you wont reduce the population.

[Lazarus]

They certainly are adaptable

Same publication, same vein, different country

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ing-menace

[Jorlcrin]

Our shire(Outback QLD) started twice-yearly 1080 baiting (primarily for dogs and pigs) back in the early 2000's.
And inside 12 months, our fox population crashed.

Still have foxes (occasionally trip the cameras), but not common.

Before the start of the baiting, roo-shooter nailed 165 foxes in 4 months, on our property alone.
After 12 months, he was seeing one or 2 foxes the whole night of shooting, and none close enough to shoot.
Fast forward some 20 years, and it's still a rarity to hear a fox calling at night.

I'm not a huge fan of 1080, but there isnt anything else that is as effective in this environment, and we dont have any of the vulnerable species that might get hammered (like Quolls, Penguins, etc)

Another thing we've noticed; when we have dogs tripping surveillance cameras on a regular basis (ie a regular path for the dog), about an hour after the dogs go past, we often recorded a fox following them.
[Havent had the cameras recording dogs for a few years now, but this is what we kept seeing in past dog events.]
I've been told dogs will tear a fox apart if given the chance(no love lost), but the foxes obviously know the dogs are likely to kill something, and so follow to see if they can get a feed.
Risky business!

They are a wasteful predator; killing all your chooks.
Despite being unable to bury the first one due to the hard ground, seems pretty pointless to keep killing all the other chooks.
I've been told they keep rabbit populations down, but we have a number of other animals that seem to hammer what rabbits we have, so not like foxes make much of a difference.
Pretty sure the Black-Headed Pythons are into the rabbits, and we have a bucketload of BH Pythons around the past 5 years, so big thumbs up for that.

[Oldbloke]

"However, they reach a certain density – about 10-13 per square kilometre – " (in london)
That's surprising as is, "In one year, we had over 30% of urban foxes trapped had bandicoots in their stomach. "

[Lazarus]

The ones that are about are doing enough damage, my girl was very interested in a small divot on the side of a road cutting when we were walking last week.

On investigation it turned out to be the ribcage of a newborn lamb, still wet inside.
Basil had stashed it for a snack, bastard.

1000021799_1_50.jpg (643.13 KiB) Viewed 2696 times

[Beno]

Western nsw has had a similar fox decline due to more co-ordinated 1080 aerial and ground baiting. Still plenty of cats but i don’t think their numbers have gone crazy due to less foxes. More likely their activity has changed and may be more detectable than previous.