Hello John,
I was the one who mentioned the fox line and I'm surprised that nobody else has
queried it, because in reality there isn't one officially.
However there are large areas of northern Australian where dingoes dominate and
there are few, if any foxes. I suspect it will have to do with climate. Maybe
foxes don't like it hot.
On the subject of foxes they may well be a worse enemy of the Night Parrot than
cats. When quail hunting was the go many years ago, it is well documented that
the dogs used to "point" the quail also used to react to Ground Parrots, so
Ground Parrots have a scent and it seems likely that Night Parrots have also. I
believe foxes do have a strong sense of smell and apart from land use, the
presence of foxes in southern Australia could well account for the
disappearance of Night Parrots here.
I seem to remember David Stewart telling me that the aborigines in Alice
Springs saying that the Night Paarrots disappeared when foxes arrived.
There is also a strong case for the use of trained dogs to locate Night Parrots
and I believe that's in the pipeline.
Cheers
Graeme
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