THEY came from Britain and rapidly colonised the Australian interior. Yet for 160 years red foxes seemed not to have found Tasmania — a Noah’s Ark of endangered animals 125 miles (200km) south of the mainland.

Now several fox carcasses — hit by vehicles — have been found on the back roads of the island, mystifying the authorities, who plan to spend A$56 million (£22 million) to destroy an enemy few had seen and that many Tasmanians still believe has not reached their home in threatening numbers.

At risk, according to the Tasmanian government and conservationists, are unique native species — many of which have died out on mainland Australia because of foxes. They include quolls, a carnivorous marsupial about the size of a cat, and bettongs and bandicoots, both tiny kangaroo-like creatures.

The fox has colonised much of Europe, the Americas and Asia. On mainland Australia alone there are an estimated 30 million — descendants of a few pairs released into the wild in 1855 for hunters. Never has the fox been eradicated from a land mass the size of Tasmania.

“We’re trying to do something that hasn’t been done in history,” says Nick Mooney, a Tasmanian wildlife biologist and fox expert. “The chances of getting rid of foxes in a state this big, once they’ve got a foothold, are unknown.”

What intrigues Mr Mooney and other scientists is whether foxes reached Tasmania long ago but remained undiscovered. It is possible that some attempts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to introduce the fox succeeded without recognition. Supporters of this theory believe that very recent events in Tasmania have conspired to encourage a rise in fox numbers — to the point at which the animals are visible for the first time.

Foremost is the decline of the Tasmanian devil, a carnivorous marsupial. The animals have been struck down by a cancer transmitted through contact with infected devils. In some regions the cancer — which attacks the mouth and jaw — has wiped out 80 per cent of the devil population.

Because the devils are predators of foxes, their demise would explain a sudden rise in fox numbers. So, too, would the recent curbing of the use of poisons to control animals considered pests, such as wallabies. The poison used would also have killed foxes. But the gravest problem facing members of the Fox Task Force in Tasmania is public scepticism.

Tasmanians have long been conditioned to mythical reports of sightings of the one animal the island has lost since European colonisation — the Tasmanian tiger. According to Mr Mooney, the reluctance of many to report fox sightings may be because they fear the same ridicule that those who say they have seen a tiger are subjected to.

FOXY BY NAME . . .

The French tell of a fox stuck down a well served by buckets on a pulley. He called to a wolf, telling him that there was delicious cheese in the well — but it was only the reflection of the moon. When the wolf came down in one bucket, the fox escaped in the other

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