Out there on the farm
Rely upon their keepers
To keep them safe from harm
One break in the defences
Lets a fox into the run
To slaughter all the chickens
While yipping loud his fun
The stewards of Australia
In the eighteenth century
Saw fit to release foxes
Into our chook-house girt by sea
A fox broke into our poultry run a couple of weeks ago slaughtering 5 pea-fowl, 4 guinea fowl and 3 chooks. The mess of blood, feathers and dead birds was horrifying and particularly because these were tame birds. They were our pets who were relying on us to keep them safe from harm. We had failed in our stewardship but its a familiar story repeated nightly across Australia. The fox is clever and persistent and once it breaches the defences it will ruthlessly slaughter everything within. But with sufficiently robust fencing, an electric hot wire and constant surveillance it is possible to keep them out. Most of the time!
But what if there is no fence, no electric hot wire and no steward on guard? We know the answer because this is the situation across most of Australia. The native birds and small mammals have no chance and the fox, as it does in a chook pen, keeps killing until there is nothing left alive. The only salvation for much our wildlife is that their populations eventually fall so low that the foxes start to starve. In National Parks and other areas it is constant battle with baits and traps and guns and slowly but surely the fox is winning.
And what kind of a monster thought it was a good idea to introduce foxes into Australia? The fine upright British citizen who enjoyed fox hunting and was home-sick for merry England would likely have never given the consequences a second thought. It is also probable that if he had been told the consequences he would have gone right ahead and introduced them anyway. The sad truth of the matter is that the 19th Century Australian settler does not have a monopoly on arrogance, complacency and thoughtlessness. Will someone 100 years from now dealing with the consequences of our bad choices look back in astonishment and wonder what kind of selfish monsters inhabited Australia in the early 21st Century. How can we be better stewards of our country and our planet?
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