Yesterday my Jack Russell Terrier appeared at a rocky outcrop with a little red-brown fluffy thing in her mouth. A fox ran up behind her yowling in the most pitiful and peculiar way, charging and provoking the terrier. Guinea dropped her bundle and chased the fox, and the fox turned tail and bolted with Guinea hard on her heels, going Yike! Yike! Yike!

“Yoowwllll! You got my baby!” the vixen said.
“Yike! Yike! I-go-kill-you!” said Guinea.

Up, around, down, away they ran, where away? At the lair I found the fox pup, cute little thing, dead. The vixen outsmarted Guinea who reappeared at the lair a few minutes later. Guinea was beside herself with joy, jumping up like a bouncing ball, trying to get the pup.

“Cut it out!” I said. So Guinea threw herself into the earth, digging and scratching frantically, her whole body quivering with excitement and delight, trying to get to the end of the earth.

Three-quarters of an hour later, no sign of Guinea. “Yike! Yike! Yike!” hollowed from inside the earth.

So I went back to the shed, got a shovel and a crowbar, and the other three dogs, and went back. I showed them the dead fox pup, thinking to blood them to fox.

“Glup!” said a collie, swallowed the pup whole, and then proved a better terrier than the terrier.

I started to dig Guinea out. Eventually I found her, yiking away, two foot under the earth, totally stuck, tail going like crazy, still quivering with excitement and digging frantically. I pulled her out and set her on the ground, but, like a magnet, she just bolted straight back down into the lair.

This is what’s behind your lamb chop. It’s not that I hate fox. I love and admire Foxy-Loxy. It’s just that I’m in direct competition with her for the use of the same lambs.

I don’t even eat the lambs myself. I swap them with my brother man for stuff he has made. Thus by the division of labour we participate in lamb chops and the death of foxes.

WTF??

Not sure what you're on, or about, but is this some sort of apology or something...

As far as I know foxes are pests. Blast away.

Now your Jack Russell has almost trained you to hunt she will never, ever, let up.

Seeing a fox tearing at a lamb as it is being born is not the most pleasant sight.

Handle with rubber gloves - hydatid. Remember the Drontal(Plus) for the dogs.

I know that foxes have been declared public enemy No.1 .And I have no doubt that they do a mountain of damage to native ecosystems.BUT I wonder whether in those areas of Australia where native predictors have been taken out –and there are large areas where that is the case – if they might come to fulfil a positive role/ fill an the empty niche?

Systems have a way of rebalancing. A recent edition of New Scientist reports that native snakes and marsupial cats which had previously seen their numbers crash ,when they preyed on the toad, are now learning to avoid it (adapt) and increase once more.

JEFFERSON!

I'm impressed :) what a wonderful parable of politics.

Please add/offer your insights to....

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=4024

On your parable...
This part is the key:

//I started to dig Guinea out. Eventually I found her, yiking away, two foot under the earth, totally stuck, tail going like crazy, still quivering with excitement and digging frantically. I pulled her out and set her on the ground, but, like a magnet, she just bolted straight back down into the lair.//

Ohhhhhh how the electorate is like Guinea..... dig them out of a financial hole.....and down they go again "Give us more.. MORE...MORE"

It matters not that there is no 'more' to give,...'more' ran out ages ago...now we have to borrow from our grandchildren to provide 'more' for the now.
But..I guess the electorate is segmented eh..and some segments don't care squat how much other segments suffer and are bruised, as long as 'they' get 'more'.....

DESAL plant...cost blowout... wages for tradesmen...Dean Mighell, Electrical contractors... who pays for the perks and jerks ? WE DO WE DO.

Can you figure this out ? --> Mighell and his ETU thugs throw mud at, spit on, and generally extort the Labor party in the seat of Melbourne, by dumping truckloads of $$$ into the Greens Campaign....

Then...wonder of wonders.. suddenly Mighell is appointed to an "expert advisory panel" by Labor. hmmmmmm

To see just how segmented and self interested these thug/robber barron/Union leaders have become... look no further than this:
http://www.etu.asn.au/files/pdfs/etu-news/ETUNEWSsummer2009-WEB.pdf

Phil Cleary has the GAUL to say in that newsletter:

//‘It’s been a long drawn out process with more
than 30 meetings but everyone’s happy and I
believe the project will serve Victoria well,’ says
Troy. What more can the ETU News say!//

Oooooh YEAH... and WE WE WE are the bunnies who have PAY for this obcenely extorted "mafia tax" as this desal plant cost 'blows out, and out..and OUT"

Dear ALGOREisRICH,

Welcome back. Although I disagree with you on many things I did not think you should have been banished and told that to Graham.