{"id":2188862,"date":"2025-10-24T18:00:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T16:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2188862"},"modified":"2025-10-18T09:02:54","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T07:02:54","slug":"it-took-just-60-years-for-the-red-fox-one-of-australias-most-devastating-predators-to-colonise-the-continent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/it-took-just-60-years-for-the-red-fox-one-of-australias-most-devastating-predators-to-colonise-the-continent\/","title":{"rendered":"It took just 60 years for the red fox, one of Australia\u2019s most devastating predators, to colonise the continent"},"content":{"rendered":"

To a newly arrived red fox, the abundant rolling grasslands and swamps of Wadawurrung Country, around what is now called Port Phillip Bay in Victoria, must have seemed like a predator\u2019s paradise.<\/p>\n

This landscape was filled with small native marsupials and birds, and free of European wolves or bears that usually kept fox numbers in check.<\/p>\n

The first red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) to arrive in Australia were deliberately released by European colonialists in 1870 in three Victorian locations \u2013 Werribee, Corio (near Geelong) and Ballarat. They were introduced for the \u201cnoble\u201d sport of fox hunting.<\/p>\n

Small native animals became easy prey for foxes because they did not evolve with these predators and did not know to avoid them.<\/p>\n

Red fox numbers ballooned and they spread rapidly. How fast? Our new research shows it took just 60 years for one of Australia\u2019s most devastating invasive predators to colonise the continent. These days, foxes can be found everywhere except the tropical north and Tasmania.<\/p>\n

Their rapid spread offers clues to how we might prevent future extinctions of native animals from foxes, and map the infiltration of Australia by other invasive species.<\/p>\n

Mapping the spread<\/h2>\n

To model the arrival and spread of foxes across Australia, we relied on hundreds of historical \u201cfirst-sighting\u201d records collected from library, local government and state archives.<\/p>\n

First sightings of foxes were particularly newsworthy at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century in Australia. This is because of the threats that foxes posed to sheep and poultry.<\/p>\n

We ran thousands of model simulations reconstructing the arrival and spread of foxes across Australia. We played out likely scenarios of fox survival, reproduction and dispersal based on what we know about their behaviour today.<\/p>\n

We then compared these simulated patterns of population growth and expansion against inferences of demographic change from these historical records. Our best models were able to closely reconstruct the timing of arrival of foxes in places and regions as well as their current day population sizes.<\/p>\n

Our modelling demonstrated foxes populated Australia at incredible speed. Between 1870 and 1895, they had spread across the south-eastern corner of Australia. Then they spread more slowly to the north and west directions in arid regions. By 1940, however, they had reached the remote north-west.<\/p>\n

\"This
This map shows how the red fox only took 60 years to spread across the whole Australian continent. Illustration: CC BY-NC-ND<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Flourishing foxes<\/h2>\n

Foxes mate in winter, with females giving birth to four to five cubs. By autumn, the young foxes are on their own. They can travel up to 300km in search of new territory.<\/p>\n

As omnivores, they eat everything from small mammals such as rodents and rabbits to birds, insects and plants. In their native range from Europe to the Middle East foxes have been suppressed by predators such as bears and wolves, but in Australia, fox numbers have soared.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the suppression of dingoes across Australia following European colonisation is at least partly to blame for the explosion in fox numbers because there are not sufficient densities of dingoes to control foxes.<\/p>\n

Foxes flourish in areas modified by humans. We show that their populations are densest around urban centres, and they do well after land is cleared for agriculture. Population growth rates of foxes in agricultural regions increased notably in the 1950s, as a result of large-scale agricultural expansion following the second world war.<\/p>\n