r/nature • u/ADragonFromTheAbyss • 6d ago
‘We cannot accept foxes as part of our landscape’: The plan to save Australia’s threatened wildlife | Invasive species
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/oct/11/fox-australia-threatened-native-species-wildlife-national-plan8
u/CaptainObvious110 6d ago
whoever brought them there should be helping to get rid of them. bringing animals thousands of miles away is ridiculous
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u/ADragonFromTheAbyss 6d ago
Although they kinda admit complete removal is impossible
Draft national strategy accepts the wily invasive species can’t be eradicated but outlines steps to protect native animals most at risk
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u/AnsibleAnswers 6d ago
Time after time, research demonstrates that downward pressure on invasive populations is beneficial even when total eradication is not feasible. Non-native animals often become problems because they lack predators and reproduce exponentially. We can be that predator.
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u/Successful-Bar-8173 6d ago
Ofc we’re also an invasive species
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u/Arthur2_shedsJackson 6d ago
While that might be true, I don't think human culling is going to be a popular public policy
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u/AnsibleAnswers 6d ago
Not just unpopular, counter-productive. Genocide isn't exactly an ecologically friendly affair. Gaza is a moonscape, for instance. Removing Gazans from the environment made the environment worse.
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u/Arthur2_shedsJackson 6d ago
In my opinion, calling humans as invasive is good for scoring emotional points but there's no practical solution to that problem.
You either have to turn authoritarian and displace people from their homes or you just do some genocide.
It's more productive to talk about conservation than creating guilt about how you are an invasive species.
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u/AnsibleAnswers 6d ago
It's not that deep. It's just animal rights activists doing what they do best: inserting themselves into problems they don't understand, nor care to.
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u/AnsibleAnswers 6d ago
We're actually not by the usual definition. We're native to every continent besides Antarctica and exhibit extreme behavioral plasticity across short timespans. Both of those traits are more or less disqualifying.
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u/Successful-Bar-8173 6d ago
I’m afraid neither of those things automatically disqualify us
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u/AnsibleAnswers 6d ago edited 6d ago
It really does, though. That's how definitions work.
That doesn't mean human societies don't cause immense damage to ecosystems. It just means that we have more options to mitigate that damage compared to invasive species, which cannot adapt their behaviors to be less invasive.
Should also note that the fact that our population growth is plateuing is also a mark against the notion that we are invasive.
I recommend this paper for a scholarly discussion of this topic: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6802023/
Our learning capacities make it difficult to say with certainty that the traits that make us damaging to the environments we inhabit are a fixed species trait. A lionfish cannot unlearn the behaviors that make them invasive in the Caribbean and Mediterranean. Humans at least theoretically could given the behavioral plasticity we've exhibited in the past few hundred years.
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u/Successful-Bar-8173 6d ago
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Convention on Biological Diversity generally define invasive alien species using two key criteria:
The species occurs outside its natural range through human-mediated introduction.
- We did that ourselves.
Its introduction or spread threatens native biodiversity or ecosystems.
- We wiped out a lot of species.
Neither definition says that a species cannot be invasive if it occupies multiple continents or adapts rapidly.
In fact, the Convention on Biological Diversity explicitly identifies phenotypic plasticity as a common characteristic of invasive species, alongside high dispersal ability and tolerance of diverse environmental conditions. That directly undermines your second argument in your original reply.
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u/AnsibleAnswers 6d ago
The two definitions cites are policy definitions, and it is assumed that the defitions apply only to non-human species in that context.
IUCN Definition:
Invasive alien species are animals, plants or other organisms that are introduced by humans, either intentionally or accidentally, into places outside of their natural range, negatively impacting native biodiversity, ecosystem services or human economy and well-being.
The Convention on Biological Diversity definition cant really be summarized in two bullet points:
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u/Key-Vegetable9076 6d ago
That literally makes no sense. Humans where in Australia before they where in Europe, parts of Asia and the Americas. Australia is near the top of places we can call humans native too....
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u/Terrovax666 6d ago
Wonder if they will have this same energy towards cats or if they'll cave in to the cat ladies
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u/Wild_But_Caged 6d ago
We do towards cats for sure! Alot of councils are banning outdoor cats and places like KI and Tasmania won't allow people to buy any more new cats (although poorly regulated). We also have cat bounties cash for pelts kind of deal foxes are $15 and cats $5.
I've shot quite alot of feral cats and when I loved in robe the local council would pay me to shoot cats around town and in the nature reserves in the area
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u/Successful-Bar-8173 6d ago
They’ve already been doing that sadly
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u/ZentaWinds 6d ago
The part about cats that makes it far worse in my opinion- is that even if they continue to kill and torture the wild and outdoor cats.. People will just create more, over and over again. It is a world wide issue and it is horrible how both local wildlife and the cats suffer because of this.
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u/Key-Vegetable9076 6d ago
You're conflating feral cats with domestic cats. Feral cats are a self-sustaining population in Australia, even if we removed all domestic cats, cats aren’t going extinct or even if we had perfect cat containment laws. Would still have 2-5 million entirely feral cats. Cats aren’t going extinct. Australia has lost around 34 mammal species since European arrival and cats are implicated in the majority of those extinctions..... These are continuing to happen. They kill something in the order of 1.5 billion native animals here each year. Choosing not to control them because it’s difficult just hands one over species to extinction. The vast vast majority of control is done humanely and torture is not occurring.
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u/ZentaWinds 6d ago
I mentioned both because I feel both play into each other- cats left to roam and breed will create their own colonies to do their own thing.
The use of 1080 is 100% happening to feral cats and has an entire product based around it. That is not humane and is certainly torture.
I am not arguing against control itself, just certain methods and the unfortunate truth that cats can continue to be a issue if people continue to leave them out to prowl and breed.
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u/Key-Vegetable9076 6d ago
Which methods do you propose that work? There are none that are effective at scale in Australia... 1080 works and if it wasn't used many many species would be extinct. If it wasn't used these animals would face contractions in there range or extinction
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u/ZentaWinds 6d ago
I am saying you either go all out and purge the invasive life or you find more humane options. The budget for these efforts is piss poor at best, so all you get is animal torture and more native wildlife being eaten.
As it stands now, this is just a nearly 100 year effort of kicking a can down the road while millions of native animals die, millions of invasive animals suffer horrible deaths and no one actually wins.
If there was a real, solid and funded push to crack down on invasive wildlife in sections, wide scale or however they decide- then fine. Use 1080 if you enjoy that sort of thing, at the very least the suffering over all will drop considerably.. Not this "Well- lets just keep laying millions of 1080 baits every year, decade after decade and just hope for the best."
Do the job right, or stop torturing animals- the moral "greater good" starts to seem less righteous after the first century.
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u/Key-Vegetable9076 6d ago
Yes but I have just told you it is not possible to eradicate them.. Other options have been pursued.. for decades and they don't work. Don't use 1080---natives are driven to extinction, that's the option you are taking. There are real solid and funded pushes to crack down on invasives.. literally everywhere In Australia has groups that do this right now. "Well- let'sjust keep laying millions of 1080 baits every year, decade after decade and just hope for the best." 1080 baits are laid out in a co-ordinated organised way everywhere. We don't hope for the best we observe (and we have) native populations increase in areas with regular baiting time and time again and at scale,
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u/ZentaWinds 6d ago
Yet again. I am not arguing to stop the use entirely. I am saying the program is underfunded (Which is it. This isn't a debate, the invasive control program is laughably under funded for what it should be to actually protect the native wildlife they claim to care about.)
I am arguing that this program, as it stands now, is simply ineffective for animal welfare on both sides. Is eradication possible? More than likely not. But a large enough campaign could provide more than enough to provide much needed protections, time and control so that the use of 1080 and other methods of torture are not required as they had been before. I struggle to understand why you have such an issue with the idea of a well funded operation to save your wildlife? Why do you hate the idea of a large scale campaign, backed with serious government funding, to push for a large scale eradication so that your native wildlife has time to recover and that the suffering caused to invasive animals is reduced heavily because less of them are being born?
It feels like you are arguing against a entirely separate person right now and I just can't wrap my head around it.
Fund the program adequately, reduce the invasive populations as much as realistically possible, protect wildlife, and reduce the need for repeated lethal control. End of story. I am sorry if this stand point somehow upsets you, but to the rest of the world this is entirely rational.
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u/Key-Vegetable9076 6d ago
You’re arguing for a well-funded, large-scale, coordinated program. That already exists. Western Shield in WA, the Saving our Species program in NSW, the Threatened Species Strategy federally, state fox and cat program— all funded, all coordinated, all running at landscape scale with measurable native recovery behind fenced and baited areas. More funding would help, nobody disagrees. But “fund it properly------>1080” doesn’t follow.
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u/Successful-Bar-8173 5d ago
Either leave them alone or allow them to live their lives in sanctuaries. It is not the cats’ faults.
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u/ZentaWinds 6d ago
Yea- they've been using 1080 on these critters along with cats and dingos (plus some other native wildlife) for nearly 100 years now. That poison causes hours upon hours of horrible suffering before death and has caused many pets to suffer and die.
I can admit to invasive animals needing control, but to cause millions of animals to suffer torturous deaths when they admit that this won't actually wipe them out seems extremely unethical and monstrous.
I could see the argument if the campaign was enough to wipe them out entirely, but to use such a horrible poison for this long is insane. Looking at videos of pet dogs and foxes alike suffering from the effects, it is disgusting to watch- even more so when they were only brought to that place because the men who lived there wanted something to hunt for sport.