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- Delaney Sawyer via Environment | The Guardian
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Survey Finds One in Six East Coast Australians Mistake Foxes for Native Wildlife
ReSurvey Finds One in Six East Coast Australians Mistake Foxes for Native Wildlife
Polling commissioned by the Invasive Species Council shows widespread confusion about which animals are native, with a third of respondents unaware that quolls are indigenous to Australia.
One in six residents of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria believe red foxes are native Australian wildlife, according to new polling that exposes significant gaps in public knowledge about the country's indigenous species. The survey, commissioned by the Invasive Species Council, also found that one in three people on the east coast did not know quolls were native animals.
The findings suggest that while most Australians can readily identify iconic species such as wombats and kangaroos as native, awareness drops sharply for less prominent animals — including some that are under direct threat from introduced predators. The red fox, which was brought to Australia by European settlers in the nineteenth century, is a major invasive predator responsible for significant declines in native mammal populations. Mistaking it for a native species represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the country's ecological history.
Quolls, by contrast, are carnivorous marsupials that have inhabited Australia for millions of years. Several quoll species are now listed as threatened or endangered, with habitat loss and predation by foxes and feral cats among the primary causes of their decline. The survey result indicating that a third of respondents believed quolls were introduced rather than native points to a troubling inversion of the actual situation: the animals most in need of protection are being misidentified as outsiders.
The Invasive Species Council, which commissioned the polling, has long argued that public awareness is a critical component of effective environmental management. Invasive species such as foxes, feral cats, rabbits and cane toads impose enormous costs on Australian agriculture and biodiversity. When the public cannot distinguish between native and introduced animals, support for control programs and conservation measures may be undermined.
The survey covered three of Australia's most populous states, meaning the knowledge gap affects a substantial portion of the national population. While the polling did not extend to other states and territories, the results raise questions about how effectively environmental education is reaching the general public. Most respondents correctly identified wombats and kangaroos as native, suggesting that familiarity and cultural prominence play a major role in shaping public understanding.
Australia has one of the world's worst records for mammal extinctions, with dozens of species lost since European settlement. Invasive predators have been a leading driver of that loss. Conservation groups have repeatedly called for stronger biosecurity measures, expanded fox and cat control programs, and greater investment in public education about native wildlife.
The polling results arrive amid ongoing debate about how best to protect Australia's unique biodiversity. The federal government has committed to a target of zero new extinctions, but achieving that goal will require both on-the-ground action and a public that understands what is at stake. The confusion revealed by the survey suggests that the educational component of that effort still has considerable ground to cover.
For the Invasive Species Council, the findings underscore a simple point: Australians cannot protect what they cannot identify. The red fox and the quoll occupy opposite ends of the conservation story — one an introduced predator, the other a native species under pressure — and conflating them is more than a trivia error. It reflects a broader disconnect between the public and the natural heritage that conservation policy is meant to safeguard.
