Carnivorous Nights_ On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger - Margaret Mittelbach [83]
Unfortunately, the dogs from the mainland proved useless in the Tasmanian landscape. They weren't used to seeing so much wildlife and were easily distracted. “They certainly flushed out a lot of wallaby,” said Chris. “They had never seen wallaby in numbers quite like that before and all of a sudden they're bouncing around everywhere and it's like, ‘Gee, look at this!’ ”
When the foxhunters and their hounds left, some Tasmanians began to wonder if the fox had existed at all. Infrared cameras set up by the Parks and Wildlife Service to catch foxes in flagrante turned up only photos of native creatures and crabby-looking feral cats. It was all starting to remind people on the island of Tasmanian tiger sightings and the subsequent searches that came to naught.
But the fox story didn't end there. Soon after the foxhounds went home, a pair of mystery men sent a photograph of themselves (heads lowered to conceal their faces) to Tasmania's leading newspaper; the photo showed them holding a dead fox and standing underneath a signpost for the town of Longford. They told the newspaper they didn't want to reveal their identities because they had been hunting without a permit on private property and were afraid of being prosecuted. Parks and Wildlife officials pleaded with the two men through the media to turn in the carcass, assuring them there would be no consequences. After a series of cloak-and-dagger phone calls, the hunters agreed to give the authorities the fox's skin—and true to their word, they sent it in to the parks service through the mail. It arrived unpreserved, putrid, and stinking of decay.
Around the same time, another hunter brought in the dead body of a fox. He said he had shot it in Symmons Plain near Longford. When scientists analyzed the stomach contents of this second dead fox, they found it had eaten small Tasmanian animals—most notably a type of mouse that's only found on the island. The physical evidence was mounting.
Shortly thereafter, DNA analysis of both the fox skin and the dead body showed the two foxes were close relatives and that they came from southern Victoria on the mainland—from a rural population. They hadn't come from the urban population at Melbourne's Webb Dock. So how had they gotten into Tasmania?
The Parks and Wildlife Service came to the conclusion that the foxes had been smuggled in. And some people even began throwing around the word “eco-terrorism.” One of the rumors circulating around Longford was that a member of the community had illegally imported and hand-raised two litters of fox pups and released them for the purpose of hunting them. There was a police investigation—but no one was ever identified, charged, or arrested. Even if the alleged eco-vandals had been caught, the courts couldn't have done much about it. The statute of limitations on illegal wildlife importation—six months—had already run out.
“As far as we can tell,” Chris said, “twelve cubs were intentionally released in the Longford area. Many Tasmanians go to the mainland to go foxhunting. They see those foxes, and they think it's just good fun shooting them. They don't think of the fact that they don't see any other animals there.”
If the perpetrators had wanted to introduce foxhunting in Tasmania, they got their wish. The hunt was on.
Stopping the foxes has become a national priority. Losing the thylacine was bad enough. Now Tasmania was looking at a possible cascade of mammal extinctions.
The Parks and Wildlife Service set up the fox task force, bringing in marksmen, dog handlers, trackers, publicists, computer experts, statisticians, and geneticists. The task force's sole purpose was to hunt down and kill the foxes before they bred.
In its first year, the task force documented 450 fox sightings all across the island. They ranked them using the same screening process used to rate Tasmanian tiger sightings. How close was the witness to the animal? Had the witness ever seen a picture of a fox? Had the witness been drinking? The sightings ranged in quality from very poor to