‘We cannot accept foxes as part of our landscape’: the plan to save Australia’s threatened wildlife — SkimNews
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- Professor Sarah Legge of Charles Darwin University authored the draft threat-abatement plan, calling foxes "one of the most impactful threats" to native wildlife and the primary driver behind roughly 40 Australian mammal extinctions.
- An estimated 1.7 million foxes spread across Australia consume about 367 million native mammals, 111 million birds and 88 million reptiles each year, per studies cited in the plan.
- Twelve highly vulnerable species face extreme risk, including the critically endangered Gilbert's potoroo, the eastern quoll, eastern and western barred bandicoots, bettongs, hare-wallabies, the Tasmanian pademelon and seven freshwater turtle species.
- The draft plan concedes foxes cannot be eradicated continent-wide, instead proposing fox-free islands, fenced predator-proof zones, and federal-state "legislative harmony" across a 30-year horizon.
- Full implementation would cost about $175 million over five years (roughly $35 million annually), compared with current fox-abatement spending of just $5-7 million — and the plan estimates foxes cause some $190 million in biodiversity damage each year.
- The Invasive Species Council's Rob Brewster backed the plan's ambition but said current efforts amount to "hurling baits out of car windows," warning that without dedicated funding streams "this plan will not work" and that the public risks "falling in love with the only thing they're seeing" — the foxes themselves.
Why it matters: The plan demands a roughly sevenfold funding jump (from $5-7M to $35M annually) at a time when highlighted species — Gilbert's potoroo, eastern quoll and seven freshwater turtle taxa — remain on extinction trajectories. The federal environment department itself estimates foxes cause $190M in biodiversity damage each year, a cost the plan says would be more than offset by full implementation.
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