the fox line

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