Good to know where our tax dollars are going'Crazy' like a pet...

Good to know where our tax dollars are going

'Crazy' like a pet fox

BY ROSSLYN BEEBY, SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT REPORTER

01 Sep, 2011 12:00 AM

The Gillard Government is considering an application to import foxes from the United States to Australia, to be sold as pets and bred for commercial sale.

A private individual has submitted a 15-page proposal to the Federal Environment Department, arguing domesticated silver foxes - a dark-furred or melanistic variant of the red fox - would be "a new sort of unique pet" combining "all the friendliness of a dog with the independence of a cat".

Scientists, conservationists and farm industry groups have blasted the proposal as "completely crazy", demanding changes to federal environment laws to introduce a "black list" of prohibited live animal imports.

According to the Invasive Animals Cooperative Research Centre, foxes cost Australia's farmers more than $21million a year in lambing losses alone, $30million a year in fox control programs, and $190million a year in livestock and native wildlife losses. The centre's chief executive, Andreas Glanznig said foxes were Australia's "biggest pest animal threat to native wildlife", responsible for the decline of at least 76 nationally threatened native wildlife species.

Australian National University ecologist Professor David Lindenmayer said Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke should have promptly rejected the proposal.

"It's completely nuts that the Government is letting the assessment process chew up public service time and taxpayers' money. It should have taken 10 seconds, because the answer has to be a resounding, emphatic refusal," Professor Lindenmayer said.

Mr Burke was travelling in Western Australia yesterday and not available for comment. But a federal Environment Department spokeswoman said the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act "allows for any person to submit a proposal to amend the live import list".

"There is no provision in the Act for a 'quick no' or 'clearly unacceptable' decision in the process,"she said.

Opposition agriculture spokesman John Cobb described the Government's response as "political correctness gone mad".