A problem of cunning tasmanian foxes or much less cunning innovation?

To many a discussion about the existence of the Tasmanian fox population seems tiresome given that fox carcasses have been found opportunistically in Tasmania – and they have been. It's a done deal to some. Eyes are raised skywards in disbelief and guffaws resound that such seemingly overwhelming evidence could be questioned. Based on this some throw their full support behind the intention to eradicate a fox population. This is the physical evidence most people point to.

Yet, hoaxing has driven a stake into the heart of reason. Unbridled precaution, especially the tendency to accept any fox evidence as confirmatory, has hammered it home.

Many fox carcasses and 'physical evidence' found in Tasmania (especially early ones) were very crude hoaxes; there are far more than the four now pointed to. All without exception have been provided in suspicious and/or very poorly documented circumstances where anonymity is a frequent hallmark. Even in the most critical cases you must suspend belief and accept backstories where mysterious parties have moved carcass from place to place for dubious motivations. Does this mean I know for sure that they are all hoaxes? Of course not. But the only reasonable conclusion, given the proven tendency for hoaxing, is that an opportunistically recovered fox carcass is not good prima facie evidence of a 'free-living' fox population. The quality of such evidence is not such that it can lead to a scientific conclusion of any merit. I have little hesitation in rejecting it as anything other than an indication that better physical evidence is required.

Only a measure indicating living, breathing, walking, free-ranging or breeding foxes says anything truly useful about the presence or absence of that population as well as the progress towards eradication. I'd even settle for a few good sets of fox prints to go with a multitude of supposedly 'reliable' sightings and fox positive scats – just once in seven years and 10,000 scat specimens. Because while the original Burnie fox left lashings of them in 1998, other Tasmanian foxes seem to be reticent to do so despite being pinpointed by so many Tasmanians. Now that's just weird.

Suspending scientific objectivity to rally to a cause is dangerous, no matter how worthy the cause and how good the intention. To accept any physical or anecdotal evidence of low evidentiary quality is naïve, but also contrary to what science is all about. That's why the Tasmanian fox programme fails as a science-based endeavor because it does not use testable and corroborated data to make claims of its capacity to eradicate. Areas of uncertainty become magnets for poor information, belief, wishful thinking and subterfuge.

The problem is we have sought to eradicate something that we cannot measure. You cannot eradicate something that lurks in the white noise of uncertainty.

But let's be clear once again. Single live foxes have been introduced into Tasmania in the recent past (2001, 1998 and before) and my bet is that they will be again. It will not be by accident when this happens and it is highly doubtful that it was to begin with. So we need to innovate and develop the capacity to detect what we fear rather than fear what we can't detect and do much about. Let's be honest about this for once.

Overall, the real capacity to detect or monitor a low abundance of free-living foxes and then apply a control measure of known and measurable effectiveness has not demonstratively improved in a very long time. There has not been adequate, effective and rapid innovation to this end, even though it has been urgent and necessary.

Sadly, spin that avoids admitting to these obvious inadequacies is bulwarking against the need for change and producing something better for the future. This political kneejerk may eventually backfire quite badly for Tasmania. It ensures that the island state will face its next fox incursion with the very same inadequacies intact and almost certain failure if a multiple fox releases ever do happen.

Spin-doctors have failed to communicate to the Tasmanian people the most fundamental issue, well known to population ecologists, andbest summarized by a few paraphrased words originally attributed to the 19^th century physicist and engineer Lord Kelvin:

"You cannot manage what you cannot measure."

Because if you can't find it, prove that you have killed it or know where it came from, or that it still exists or ever did - can you eradicate it? The answer is clearly no.