Personally, I’d rather watch a family of these:Imagine being able to watch a whole family of these:
Question for people who live near foxes
- Thread starter Miss Chicken
- Start date
^ I could get on board with that, though I was trying to be too true to the theme of redd foxxes.
If only we'd been around three million years ago in South America! We could've slaughtered all the animals that tried to cross the isthmus "that didn't belong."
Arriving in a country by natural means is considerably different than being introduced by men. For a start an animal arrives naturally probably arrives at the same time as some of its prey or predator so there is still a natural balance.
I agree with Orac Zen. Let us start by wiping out the foxes. We can deal with white man in due course.
I dunno. Starting about 40,000 years ago, a large apex predator swept through both North and South America. Those continents turned out okay.
If nothing else, it just makes me mad that poor foxes are being made to pay for the sin of being enslaved and brought to Australia. Especially when it's likely little more than human arrogance that dictates they have to die so some marsupial rat it happens to eat may live in greater numbers.
I've never understood the desire to protect the existence of a species, as if species meant anything inherently precious. That large apex predator I mentioned absolutely eradicated the mammoth. It didn't matter. While certain keystone species (grizzly bears, those floating bag things whose name escapes me that do something important in the ocean) should be preserved when possible, that's only because the human species in some way depends on their continued existence. I doubt the eastern bettong is any more important, in this regard, than the red fox.
At least when you introduced biological warfare on rabbits, I could understand--rabbits impact human economic development by overgrazing. Of course, the rabbits are still there, and good for them.
Wait. Rabbits. Foxes. Rabbits. I think I'm getting something.
Almost...
No, it's gone.
And yes, of course we kill things here, too. It's awful. Feral cats, for example, are captured, put in cages, and apparently almost always killed. Almost four million cats and dogs are euthanized per year. I have no idea why we do this, other than humans besides me are fucking monsters.
I also find it ironic, if not bitterly hypocritical, that we fear the overpopulation of animal species we ourselves outnumber.
Collingwood Nick said:
Hell, it's not like the brown man emerged fully formed out of Ayers Rock.
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For a start not one fox has been killed (as far as we know) by the Tasmanian Fox Eradication Program. Not one in more than 10 years. Only 4 fox carcass have been found and none of those carcasses were fresh. It is possible they were actually carcasses from the Mainland that were dumped so that it looks like there are foxes in Australia.
Also Tasmania is the only state that has managed to eradicate hydatid disease, and there is a serious risk of its being reintroduced if foxes are ever introduced into Tasmania.
Also Tasmania is the only state that has managed to eradicate hydatid disease, and there is a serious risk of its being reintroduced if foxes are ever introduced into Tasmania.
Foxes have pretty much become urban vermin here (although not technically classified as vermin, you can still legally do much the same as you can with other vermin - shooting, snaring, trapping, etc. You just can't poison them). I'm lucky to have only a few near me, but around my father's place there are shedloads of them. I visited him the other day and drove past two foxes on the same street getting there. They get in people's bins, even the heavy big ones, create a mess, dig up gardens, half of them seem mange-ridden, and I wouldn't be surprised to learn they carry other diseases too although I don't know if they're a particular vector for anything transmissible. Dad uses a pretty powerful but non-lethal repellant to keep them away from his property, which seems to work OK.
There was a big dog fox picking off our geese last year. Then he lost an argument with traffic. It was karma. In this country there is an eradication programme for mink and grey squirrels. The mink one is working well, the grey squirrel one is only just getting under way.
Doesn't Austrailia have a rabbit pest problem? Foxes eat rabbits...
But no, foxes are pretty smart and don't like being seen- you see the effects of them but rarely the fox, unless there's something wrong.
I've seen maybe 3? And I live in the woods!
Near here people are more concerned with Mountain Lion sightings than foxes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx2nrlt9_Xs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx2nrlt9_Xs
That is so funny.
Australia has famously suffered one ecological problem after another whenever a non-native species is introduced by humans. The cane beetle, for example, got a free ride from Hawaii when sugar cane was introduced as a cash crop. Then the cane toad was deliberately introduced to control the beetle. The toads did a great job of eating the beetles -- and everything else! With few natural predators (because of the poison it secretes from glands in its skin), the cane toad is now a major pest.
I hear you can get a buzz from licking them, though.
I hear you can get a buzz from licking them, though.
Over-anthropomorphizing much, are we?
Because asshole pet owners are too irresponsible to spay and neuter their pets, that's why.
I'm not a veterinarian and I don't play one on television, but I would assume foxes are vectors for canine diseases that can be transmitted to domestic dogs, as well as diseases common to all mammals, such as rabies.
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I have one of those, and two "cubs" but they're the orange tigers. I should put them in my car and see if anyone freaks out...
Foxes are common in London, my part of London... They're called Urban Foxes, they come out at night, rarely seen them during the day. They run in packs, have been known to go through people's rubbish... When they call out, like a mating call or what ever, they sound like their leg's stuck under a rock -- on the path of an on comming locomotive.
.. I have heard of the odd run in of Fox vs. House Cat and, I have seen many an Urban Fox as road kill too
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They are quite common here.
.. I have heard of the odd run in of Fox vs. House Cat and, I have seen many an Urban Fox as road kill too
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They are quite common here.
I wonder if the police would know what to do if a real white tiger found it's way into the factory where they make the white tiger toys.
I expect they'd have to bring along a lot of tranquilizer.
This is why Tasmania has to be so vigilant when it comes to any possibility of the introduction of the fox. The only two animals that have become extinct in Tasmania since the arrival of white men is the Thylacine and the Tasmanian Emu (and the King Island subspecies). Both of these are the result of hunting not of the introduction of a feral species. Even the arrival of the cat in Tasmania does not seem to have caused as much harm as elsewhere. This is probably due to the fact that cats are found in lower densities because they have to compete with quolls and Tasmanian Devils but also because cats in Tasmania seem to prey mainly on rabbits or feral birds.
There were attempts to introduce foxes into Tasmania during the 19th century but all these attempts failed. It is now believed that this was a result of Tasmanian Devils being present in Tasmania. The devils would kill the fox cubs in the den. On mainland Australia devils had become extinct before the arrival of white men, there is little doubt that this extinction was a result of the arrival of the dingo (which never reached Tasmania).
However due to Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumour Disease the number of devils in the wild has plummeted meaning that they can no longer be relied on to stop foxes from becoming established.
However, the only known instance of a fox's arrival in Tasmania since the 19th century was in 1998, when a young male fox was filmed getting off a ship that was docked at Burnie Wharf. What became of this fox is unknown.
Oh wow, I didn't know you had Urban Foxes in Glasgow too; but then, I've never been.
Ah well you should visit. I find it's less crazy than London, but still has a "big city" feel.
