Foxes prowling Mudgeeraba
MUDGEERABA residents say foxes have returned after a long hiatus and are killing chickens and native wildlife.
Justine Keep-Bovingdon said three of her chickens were devoured by a fox last week.
Her family has been forced to lock their hen house at night for the first time in eight years.
“My daughter had gone to collect eggs from the chickens and she came back quite upset,” Ms Keep-Bovingdon said.
“We only found the remains of one head – nothing else.”
She said it was particularly upsetting because her family had been hand-raising the chickens as pets since the pandemic started.
Ms Keep-Bovingdon said the fox situation in Mudgeeraabout
ba was out of control. And she’s not alone in her belief.
Several residents have posted their concerns about increased fox sightings on a community Facebook group.
One man said he spotted two fox cubs this week after 20 years of not seeing one in Mudgeeraba.
A Gold Coast City Council spokeswoman said the city had received 11 customer requests
foxes in the past three months.
Of this, there was one request each in Mudgeeraba, Gilston, Coombabah, Tallai and Worongary, four in Tallebudgera and two in Currumbin Valley.
The council spokeswoman said fox complaints had not increased and remained low across the Gold Coast.
“Surveillance on cityowned and managed land has also not shown an increase in fox detections,” she said.
The spokeswoman said under the Biosecurity Act 2014, it was a landowner’s responsibility to manage foxes on their land.
“The City has fox management operations in place on City-owned and managed land, including surveillance and trapping,” she said.