A FORMER Fox Taskforce supplier has revealed further oddities in the program’s evidence collection.
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Foam rubber was found in two fox scats in the North-West in 2008, and Victorian fox catcher Mark Fenby – whose foxes’s scats were sent to Tasmania that year – says the material matches the foam rubber he used in his fox traps at the time.
One expert says the discovery suggests the animals responsible for the scats were kept in captivity, raising further suspicion that fox evidence was planted in Tasmania by the program’s staff.
In 2008, Mr Fenby supplied foxes to Tasmanian government-hired researcher Frank Gigliotti.
Mr Gigliotti then sent the scats from those foxes to Tasmania for research purposes.
That year, the two scats containing foam rubber were found in Tasmania 80 kilometres apart and six months apart by two Fox Eradication Program employees.
Those scats went on to form part of the state government’s final pitch for federal government fox funding in 2012, worth almost $2 million.
Mr Fenby said he had used the same foam rubber in his fox traps since 1992.
"Every time I get a fox or a dog, they bite at their foot and the trap - the rubber jaws. They want to know what's got their leg," he said.
"Those bits of foam are the first thing that gets chewed up."
A foam rubber plate is commonly used in fox foothold traps to prevent dirt from jamming up the device.
Mr Fenby said the same foam rubber was also used in car seats and mattresses.
"It's not unusual at all (for a fox to chew on a car seat). I've found cigarettes, cans inside foxes. They eat anything," he said.
But fox researcher and former Fox Eradication Program advisor Dr Clive Marks believes that scenario is unlikely.
He thinks the discovery of foam rubber in the Tasmanian fox scats is further proof that the program was rife with evidence tampering.
"The important distinction here is that this foam is only typically found in the gut of foxes after they have been trapped. We don’t have to employ speculation to account for it," he said.
"If this type of foam was used in the trapping of the mainland foxes held for producing scats for the Tasmanian fox program, I’d say that it is is yet another piece of evidence pointing to foul play.”
In July, it was revealed that five scats in the government's official fox records were deemed to belong to completely different species.
Tasmania Police is investigating.
-cclarke@fairfaxmedia.com.au