Carnivorous Nights_ On the Trail of the Tasmanian Tiger - Margaret Mittelbach [84]
One of the problems the task force faces is that foxes are highly elusive. According to biologists, as many as six foxes can be living on every square kilometer of land in an area before they're even detected. “Because of the amount of wilderness and gorse, the Tasmanian countryside is a very good habitat for them to hide in,” said Chris. It's also full of food. “We have so many small animals—little bettongs, bandicoots, rabbits, rats, ground-dwelling parrots, rufous wallabies, possums—it's just a banquet for foxes.”
If the Fox Free Tasmania Taskforce is not successful, the foxes' growing population would not even be apparent for ten or fifteen years. “Then ground parrots and things like the Eastern barred bandicoot—because they're not at high numbers to start with—they would disappear very quickly … If the foxes are breeding, we're going to lose the battle. I suppose time will be the judge of it all.”
So far—after hundreds of all-nighters—the task force hadn't caught any foxes. They weren't even sure if they had seen any. It was like they were chasing a red fog.
But the good news was that they did have some kills under their belts. Chris pointed to the big map and to a six-mile stretch of road along the Midlands Highway between Campbelltown and Conara Junction. It was jammed with yellow, blue, and green pins. Some of these “fox” sightings were not very good. People were seeing “foxes” with fluffy white tails and catlike heads. And that muddied the waters for the task force. “What we do in an area with a lot of sightings—if there's any sort of confusion between cats and foxes—we'll take the cats out.”
“You take them out?” we said.
“We shoot them.” So far, the task force had shot a total of 136 cats.
Alexis's eyes widened. Maybe the Vroom Museum had a future after all.
We wondered. If people sometimes confused cats with foxes …We asked if we could look over a few sighting reports. Chris showed us an inchthick folder, and we flipped through it. Quite a few reports described the fox accurately, or nearly so. The words “sly” and “skulking” were frequently used. After reading through about twenty sightings, we found one that seemed suggestive. A couple driving home from their golf club on Tasmania's east coast had reported seeing the following to a task force officer: “Gingery/sandy animal, dog-like, bigger than cat. No eye shine, unusual, ‘bouncing’ gait. Animal moved toward them on opposite road edge. Then moved into roadside bush.”
We looked up. “Is it possible people ever mistake thylacines for foxes?” we asked.
Chris gave us the hairy eyeball.
“Ahhhhh …” Clearly, he was stalling, trying to think of a way to be polite. But then he just gave up. “If you want to believe in thylacines, you'll believe in fairies.”
“Don't a lot of people here believe it?”
“A lot of people want to believe. That's the whole thing, yeah? It was an animal that wasn't scared of humans—and that was probably its biggest downfall. There's plenty of documented evidence of people walking along trails and turning around and there'd be a thylacine coming along behind them. Or they'd walk through a camp in the night. Why does this animal stop doing that ? Basically, it disappeared. Extinction.”
“What do you think of the cloning project?” Alexis asked.
“Interesting,” Chris said. He could see why the cloning scientists would want to bring the thylacine back. “It's like any extinct animal. It's a tragedy to think that humans wiped out something.” He paused to reflect. “That's exactly what stopping foxes in Tasmania is all about, stopping further extinctions. Because if foxes get established, that's what will happen.”
“Then you'll really need to send in the clones,” said Alexis. “You'll have to clone every mammal in Tasmania.”
17. THE RED