‘We cannot accept foxes as part of our landscape’: the plan to save Australia’s threatened wildlife

Ecologists have spent the past 18 years learning everything they can about foxes and the Australian species they hunt, informing a new national strategy. Photograph: Dr Matthew Rees

They dart across playgrounds on dainty paws, sneak into back yard coops to eat suburban chickens and kill more than a million native animals every day.

The European red fox – a wily invasive species – is “one of the most impactful threats” for native mammals, says Sarah Legge, a professor at Charles Darwin University and author of a new draft plan to curb their predation.