He was the fantastic fox that derailed a multimillion-dollar plan to reintroduce endangered native species into one of Australia’s largest forests. But after a five-year hunt that involved 10,400 traps, 3,500 baits, 73 stakeouts, 55 days of scent-tracking dogs and 97 infrared cameras filming 40 hours a week, the red fox nicknamed Rambo is officially “no longer”.
It means, for the first time in a century, greater bilbies are running wild in north-west New South Wales.
The bilbies – of which there are believed fewer than 10,000 nationwide – are the first of six locally extinct or vulnerable species that the Australian Wildlife Conservancy with NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service will reintroduce to the sprawling wilderness between Narrabri and Coonabarabran known as the Pilliga Scrub.
Next in line are bridled nailtail wallabies and brush-tailed bettong, with the vulnerable plains mouse and western barred bandicoot to be reintroduced in June and September.
But it’s been a long time coming. AWC operates the largest private and donor-funded sanctuaries in Australia, with safe havens for endangered-species in Scotia and Mallee Cliffs (NSW), Yookamurra (SA) and Mt Gibson (WA). But none have faced the unique challenge that beset the 5,800-hectare conservation area in the Pilliga: a feral that couldn’t be caught.
“We see it occasionally in large-brained placental carnivores,” says Dr Tim Flannery, who followed Rambo’s story. “They don’t become smarter than their human hunters but they‘re better evolved than their brethren. Waiting them out siege-style becomes the only option.”
Pilliga operations manager Wayne Sparrow has managed the hunt for Rambo for five years. “When we started fencing the enclosure in 2018, Rambo was just a kit and we reckon he lost his mother to a trap and a sibling to 1080-bait soon after,” Sparrow says. “That was his education, and it made him this reclusive, shy, intuitive animal. But he was no typical fox.”
Sparrow says Rambo - named for Sylvester Stallone’s unkillable action hero – didn’t move with the cycles of the moon or use the same path twice. Nor could he be lured with baits like most foxes or trapped using snares like other ferals. “I came to respect him,” Sparrow says. “I knew I had to bring my A-game to ever catch him.”
Smuggled into Australia in 1835 to be hunted, the red fox’s adaptability and intelligence allowed it to spread quickly across the nation. Today, Melbourne is estimated to have 20 foxes per square kilometre and Sydney 10. Last March, it was estimated that Australia’s 1.7m foxes kill in the vicinity of 367m mammals and 111m birds every year.
In the Pilliga, as the hunt for Rambo stretched into years, Sparrow became increasingly desperate. He brought in Indigenous trackers, ex-military assassins, soft-jaw trap specialists, even a hunting-dog breeder who claimed to have bred a “beagle-kelpie fox-finder” hybrid.
“At first every shooter and trapper wanted Rambo as a trophy,” Sparrow says. “But every one of them came, tried and left empty-handed.” Sparrow himself spent countless nights on a perch in the Pilliga with lure boxes laid and a thermal rifle at the ready. But to no avail.
Now, despite Sparrow’s best efforts, Mother Nature appears to have done what he and a long line of hunters, scientists and rangers couldn’t, and outfoxed Rambo at last.
Camera-trap footage last caught sight of Rambo on 9 October 2022. Since then, despite intensive monitoring and tracking, no evidence of the wily fox has been found. It is suspected Rambo died during one of two flooding events that hit the Pilliga in October last year
“I am 100% confident he is gone,” Sparrow told the Guardian. “After a huge volume of work and a lot of stress, it’s over. Rambo will always be in my thoughts but he’s finally left my dreams.”
In the years Rambo delayed a full-scale reintroduction, AWC released 60 bilbies into a temporary breeding area of 680 hectares in 2018. Ecologists now estimate the population to be 335. Bridled nailtail wallabies have flourished similarly with 42 originals now a mob of 148.
This month, after adhering to eradication monitoring periods which require a fenced area to be clear of feral predators for a minimum of three months, AWC officially declared the enclosure “feral-free” and moved these pioneering colonies into the wider Pilliga.
“Bilbies have lived in Australia for 15m years,” said AWC ecologist Dr Vicki Stokes. “The timing [for their reintroduction] is perfect. Good conditions in the forest over the last few years have meant that both populations of bilbies and bridled nailtail wallabies are doing exceptionally well and it’s good to get them out into the wider area so they can flourish.”
