23/07/2026
Farmers have reported an increase in fox numbers around the Busselton and Margaret River areas.
Wayne Credaro is a sheep farmer in Carbunup, just east of Yallingup Siding, and each year his family hang up a number of the pests they kill along his property’s fence line.
He said he would typically shoot between 15 and 20 foxes over the five-week lambing season, but this winter he and his son had killed upwards of 50.
“All those foxes have come from this property where they are hanging,” he said.
Mr Credaro said the rise in numbers was part population growth and part adoption of thermal technology for hunting.
“Before my son had the thermal scope on, I thought we didn’t really have a fox problem that was so bad,” he said.
“It is actually frightening for us in some ways to think about the amount of pressure that puts on our lambing.”
Metricup farmer Adele Cameron said she had also noticed more foxes this year than in previous years.
“I’m starting to notice them even when I’m driving along the road quite frequently too, along the [Bussell] highway in the evening,” she said.
“With all the fragmentation of the land down here and with all the new people moving into the area… [foxes] eat very well when they live around a lot of humans.”
Ms Cameron said she used a mix of donkeys and maremma dogs to control fox numbers and protect her livestock, but for larger farms the best method of control is shooting.
“It’s the quickest way to eradicate a fox… It’s much better than poison as well because poison is indiscriminate,” she said.
