Of Fish and Foxes

Tasmania; land of wild scenic beauty.  Where snow capped mountains loom over fields decorated with junked cars.  Where ancient, old growth forests resonate with the sound of bird song and chainsaws.  Where wild rivers rush through their beds on their age old journey to lakes created by massive dams to generate hydro power which still doesn't stop there being power shortages during a drought.  In short Tasmania, where men are men and fish are crowded.

OK, that last sentence might need a little explaining.  People who have read my previous blogs on our southern colony might have come to the conclusion that the working age population of Tasmania is evenly divided between useless government employees and welfare recipients.  This is actually rather unfair.  The working age population of Tasmania is roughly divided into three groups; welfare recipients, the government employees hired to provide the welfare to the recipients and employees in the private sector doing their best to mismanage the state's vast natural resources to the point where they can be transferred to one of the first two categories.

Which quite naturally leads us to fish.  Fish farming is a bit of a Tasmanian success story.  Salmon appears to be the fish of choice (I don't know why, possibly they're easier to herd) and three principal companies have fish ranches at various points on (or more likely, off) the coast.  Salmon, it would appear are being bred at a frightening rate, and herein lies the problem.  Just recently one of the fish farmers has broken ranks with the others to announce that (nothwithstanding industry statements to the contrary) the sheer volume of salmon in Macquarie Harbour, Strachan is getting to be a bit of a problem.  Apparently you can walk across the harbour without getting your feet wet so great is the preponderance of salmon.  Ships frequently run aground on massive fish shoals and some salmon have broken down the fences and joined the wild salmon herds roaming free or something like that.

Gangs of teenage salmon are lurking in drains beating up the unwary and the oxygen content of the water is getting a little sub standard.  What happens if the oxygen content gets too low?  Presumably the fish die.  Is it wrong of me to consider this a self solving problem?  This blogs piscine affairs reporter sent back accounts of desperate fish struggling for breath which are no less horrifying for being completely made up.  Apparently disaster is on the way or, as industry in Tasmania would put it, business as usual.  There are calls for the government to do something about this (what exactly do you do with too many salmon?  Institute a "sushi only" policy in government canteens?). Unfortunately the government is busy chasing imaginary foxes.

Foxes are apparently the malignant fear that keeps all Tasmanians up at night.  Are there foxes in the state?  Could there be?  Might some come if we don't have a strong border policy?  WHY ISN'T THE GOVERNMENT DOING MORE TO PROTECT US FROM FOXES!!!

For some reason foxes worry Tasmanians.  OK, they're an introduced species, they do untold damage to the environment and they're generally undesirable.  So far you've just described pretty much every industry in Tasmania.  Still foxes are, apparently, the line in the sand.  According to this blogs introduced predators reporter the Tasmanian government has spent $50 million dollars in recent years looking for foxes that might not be there.  Frightening evidence of fox presence largely in the form of scat (a technical term for shit) has been found, and analysed to death by various coprophiliac scientists on the government payroll.  However whether this is fox scat and if it is whether it was actually recovered in Tasmania or was smuggled into the state for the sole purpose of justifying a $50 million dollar fox hunting programme is currently being debated. 

If there are foxes in Tasmania they're keeping a pretty low profile and any devastation they're causing amongst the native wildlife seems to have been skilfully concealed amongst the overall devastation of the native wildlife which can be attributed to Tasmania conducting business as usual.  I sent this blog's mythical threat reporter out into the Tasmanian wilderness to see if she could find any foxes.  She responded with a photo of a dead fox by the side of the road. 
"Proof!" I shouted.  "Man the barricades, distribute weapons to the children, prepare for war, the fox hordes are approaching."
"Not necessarily," replied my intrepid correspondent.  The fox in question was found on the road next to some rather suspicious looking tire treads which seem to indicate someone may have driven up and dumped a dead fox in the road.  An autopsy is currently being conducted on the fox to see if this can shed any more light on the subject.

Sighing in disgust I sent her back out into the wilderness and told her not to come back without foxes.  Sadly all she could find was collapsed telegraph poles and inappropriately dressed Chinese tourists.  The Chinese tourists had come for a bushwalk apparently under the impression that they were going for a stroll along a boardwalk.  As such they were finding the pavement a little soggy and distressingly devoid of concrete and the ladies high heels had a tendency to sink in at awkward moments.  As for the telegraph poles, well this part of Tasmania has had a lot of rain lately.  It turns out that the poles carrying electricity to the good folk of Tasmania who live in these parts weren't really inserted with the expectation that the ground might get wet.  Now that it has a number of them have fallen over.  I suggested to my correspondent that she might like to inform the government of this but apparently they've blown the entire budget on mystery foxes.