Scott O'Keeffe wrote:
>
> Well, LK, "foxes" is what "I do". (I work in feral animal control with the
> Qld Dept of Natural Resources and Mines). Foxes are indeed, very common in
> Australian towns and cities. There are plenty of scientific studies to
> back that up. The Port of Brisbane has very recently done some monitoring,
> and they are common right through Fisherman Island area, including the
> mangroves. They have been observed (frequently) in every part of Brisbane,
> including the city centre, New Farm, etc etc. The situation is the same in
> other large population centres. Most people are unaware of their presence,
> since they are both retiring and active mostly in dark or twilight.
>
> Foxes certainly would be outnumbered by cats and dogs, but not by several
> orders of magnitude. Foxes often exist at higher densities in cities than
> in rural areas, simply because there is so much food avaialable for them.
> This is also the case in urban areas within the foxes natural range.
OK, so you reckon there would be of the order of 10,000 foxes in
Brisbane?
If there are that many foxes about they mustn't be very effective turkey
hunters, presumably due to the turkeys roosting behaviour. Perhaps the
turkey eggs are buried too deep for the foxes to dig them up.
Have there been many studies of urban fox stomach contents? It would be
interesting to know how many pups and kittens they catch.
LK
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