We’re keeping a close eye on the Bird Flu situation and while we’re still seeing the biggest impacts along the coastline and in sea birds and mamals, there have been some worrying developments to note.

Foxes and other feral animals as vectors.

A red fox sampled on 26th August has tested positive for bird flu in a worrying turn of events for Australia. While this is our first case of a land mammal catching this strain of bird flu, it’s not unusual for scavenger species and cases of bird flu in foxes have previously been reported in other countries.

So what can we do?

It’s been a bumper couple of years for foxes in the Mid Lachlan Region and while I know many of us have live baiting, shooting and trapping programs this flu update serves as a prompt for us to ramp things up across our neighbourhoods.

We encourage people to work together as feral animals have no respect for fencing and property boundaries, plus it can be a thankless task to undertake on your own. Feral Scan has provision for you to set up a neighbourhood action group for whatever feral species you’re targeting and that data can be kept private so it’s only shared to members of your group.

Talk to your Local Land Services Biosecurity Officer about traps & baits – again working together can make these programs much more effective AND can ensure you keep non-target species such as domestic dogs safe from any poisons.

Train yourself online with these free resources from Tocal College.

Going all out to kill our foxes may not stop birdflu in its tracks but it can’t hurt to try.