-Pokey-

There were some (typically) blurry photos taken a while back by an aboriginal tracker up in WA, Google is being unhelpful with the site that has copies of them (from memory it was in Spanish) but it had a few different shots and excerpts from an interview with the tracker. It was quite an interesting story, despite how unlikely it is.

It's certainly unfortunate but.. the methods used are at least more humane than those used in China and ultimately, it's probably kinder to the animals to destroy them, given some of the likely alternatives to a clean shot (disease, starvation, fighting, etc).

Not necessarily. They might know without having enough evidence to stand up in a prosecution. Pokey, the people I heard the story from weren't focussed on the motivation for the release nor trying to give it an anti-hunter spin, their interest was in the eradication effort. Given how efficiently rumours spread down here, I think it's highly unlikely that any individual or group suspected of deliberately introducing a breeding population of foxes into Tasmania would remain an anonymous "they" for very long, even if the authorities, themselves, lacked the evidence to actually prosecute.

Just out of curiosity.. do you have a source for this? I'm not suggesting it's untrue, I just can't understand the reasoning behind releasing foxes as "environmental vandalism" when they then made efforts to recover what they'd released*. And that point aside, not only could Google not provide a single article to support the above, I've lived in Tasmania for 25 years and never heard any rumours to this effect. Edit- * This is akin to spray painting graffiti all over a wall and then washing it off again; just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I just did a quick google search and came up with this http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...030123_fox.html Haven't read it all. Although that article mentions deliberate release (although without conclusive evidence), it's not mentioned anywhere that this alleged release was conducted by pro-hunting groups or as an act of environmental vandalism. I'm loath to make assumptions but it sounds suspiciously like agenda-driven rumour (*cough* AACT *cough*) to me.

Can you provide a source though? If not, it's best to be clear upfront that what you're repeating is hearsay only and not fact- that's what I'm getting at. Either way, it's clearly a terrible thing but spreading misinformation (as this can only be considered, given no sources are apparently available) as fact really isn't productive.

Can't edit this post (I lost password to old account ) so quoted and updated.

Just out of curiosity.. do you have a source for this? I'm not suggesting it's untrue, I just can't understand the reasoning behind releasing foxes as "environmental vandalism" when they then made efforts to recover what they'd released*. And that point aside, not only could Google not provide a single article to support the above, I've lived in Tasmania for 25 years and never heard any rumours to this effect. Edit- * This is akin to spray painting graffiti all over a wall and then washing it off again; just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.