BIOSECURITY TASMANIA has said it's entirely possible foxes could still enter the state - most likely from Victoria - even though the last live sighting was more than 15 years ago.
The claims come despite a panel of prominent Australian and international scientists saying that there has been absolutely no compelling evidence of Tasmanian foxes, since the discovery of physical traces of a single escapee, at Burnie in 1998.
They also come amidst growing calls for a full-scale review into the entire Fox Eradication Program (FEP), believed to have cost $50 million, in Federal and State money.
An internationally renowned fox researcher Dr Clive Marks said the panel had comprehensively reviewed all the claims, physical evidence and scat DNA data used to support claims the animal existed in Tasmania.
"Apart from a single fox incursion in Burnie in May 1998, no other empirical data concerning fox presence passes muster," Dr Marks said.
"The principle claim about a mass release of foxes was baseless and the physical evidence used as 'hard evidence' was a dog's breakfast of opportunistically acquired specimens, most of which no one contests as being anything other than hoaxes.
"Taken together, I have no hesitation in concluding that there is presently no evidence of a fox population existing in Tasmania, nor has there been convincing empirical evidence of foxes since 1998."
But Biosecurity Tasmania general manager, Lloyd Klump, said foxes remained very much on the organisation's radar.
While Biosecurity Tasmanian had never been involved in the FEP - it actually oversaw the disbanding of the project - its role was to bring together necessary skills and expertise for all pest incursions.
He said there was "a range of work" still happening" specifically around foxes.
"There is a wealth of experience within Biosecurity Tasmania around risk management and response capability that we could apply to all pests and diseases, including foxes," Dr Klump said.
"We still receive some Commonwealth money and those research projects are still underway - they are about detection methods, about how we detect very small populations, for incursions.
"I should say they are valuable because, not only will they help with any possible fox incursions in the future, they are also techniques we can apply to other vertebrate pests," he said.
Members of the public should remain alert and notify Biosecurity Tasmania, if they saw a fox, even if it turned out it was a false sighting.
"If they suspect it is a fox, they should let us know as quickly as possible, so we can investigate with the best science we possible can."
He said he was assessing the panel report and Biosecurity Tasmania was in the process of redeveloping the way vertebrate pest management was undertaken.
Although the FEP was closed down last year, the government is yet to receive another $1 million Federal funding for it, under the 2013/14 Caring for Our Country program.
When the money was granted, the program was touted as "a long term, joint Australian and Tasmanian Government commitment to complete the largest invasive animal eradication ever attempted."
A spokeswoman for Federal Environment Miniser Greg Hunt admitted Commonwealth funding was still being provided for the detection of foxes.
"Since this project commenced in July 2013, its focus has been to (a) investigate credible reports or detections of suspected fox incursions and (b) maintain the capacity to rapidly respond to suspected or confirmed detection of foxes," the spokeswoman said.
"The funding also supports ongoing monitoring where required, a review of existing border biosecurity arrangements, and any other measures that will further minimise the risk of future incursions of foxes into Tasmania," she said.
Prominent fox critic, Upper House Tasmanian MP Ivan Dean said mistakes would be repeated, if lessons were not learned about how the FEP was run.
"We have to find out just what did happen and in this case, there is a lot of evidence to suggest the information was just not genuine," Mr Dean said.
"That has now got to be thrashed out, so we can get structure right - because there will be evidence of other incursions of pests and feral animals into the future
"So if we don't learn from what has happened, then we are opening up to similar things happening in the future and that is not acceptable," he said.
Both Mr Dean and Dr Marks called for cultural changes in Biosecurity Tasmania.
Mr Dean said changes in Biosecurity Tasmania's culture were needed urgently.
"They have to accept there were mistakes made, they have to accept the need for change, they have got to accept it is taxpayers money that is being used in all these cases," Mr Dean said.
"If we don't look at the past, what do we get out of that $50 million, if there is no investigation or inquiry into what happened in the past - absolutely nothing, because there was no genuine evidence of any foxes existing in this state."
Dr Marks agreed with Mr Dean's assessment.
"No one has yet demonstrated the stomach for the kind of warts and all retrospective that is necessary to prevent the same technical and strategic failures from being perpetuated," Dr Marks said.
"While this remains the case I have no confidence that the next real fox incursion in Tasmania will be met with a competent response.
"In my opinion, the vocal and partisan 'supporters' of the past fox program are working against the best interests of Tasmanian biosecurity," he said.
