• Fri   • Dec 20, 2013   • Updated: 6:39am  Tasmania's fox hunt
is a wild goose chase, say sceptics  PUBLISHED : Friday, 31
August, 2007, 12:00am UPDATED : Friday, 31 August, 2007, 12:00am
It is costing tens of millions of dollars, but a campaign to
exterminate foxes in Tasmania has become enveloped in a cloud of
slander, intrigue and conspiracy theories.  The government of
the Australian island state is convinced a population of
European red foxes has been introduced to the island, either by
accident on container ships or deliberately in an act of
malicious eco-terrorism.  Unlike mainland Australia, Tasmania
has until now remained fox-free and has the country's healthiest
populations of small marsupials - exactly the kind of prey
favoured by the rapacious predators.  But the alleged foxes have
proved maddeningly elusive and the Apple Isle is divided as to
whether they are in Tasmania at all. Sceptics say there are no
foxes in Tasmania.   Doubters believe some shooters are so
resentful of Tasmania's strict h