After terrorising native wildlife in a north-west New South Wales conservation area for almost five years, conservationists are confident the hunt for the fox known as Rambo is over.
Named after the lead character from the 1982 action film First Blood, the fox was trapped in a 5,800 hectare fenced area in the Pilliga State Forest, which is supposed to be a safe place for near-extinct native animals.
Shooters spent hundreds of hours hunting him and thousands of baits were laid.
Rambo was last seen in camera trap footage in early October 2022 and has been notably absent since flooding in the region late last year, when he is thought to have died.
With his demise allowing the area to finally be declared predator-free, wildlife conservationists are moving forward with plans to reintroduce six endangered species.
'Met his match'
Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) Pilliga operations manager Wayne Sparrow said the long-awaited confirmation that the zone was predator-free was a huge boost for the project.
"The intent is to remove all feral species — pigs, cats, foxes, goats and the like," he said.
"Our project here is to reintroduce native mammals, particularly bilbies, bettongs, nail-tail wallabies, Shark Bay bandicoots.
"All of those mammals fall into a critical range of species that are heavily predated on by cats and foxes."
The AWC frequently snapped Rambo on camera and Mr Sparrow said "a huge amount of time"was spent trying to catch him.
"Probably 80 per cent of our control efforts were actually spent trying to find evidence of the fox existing and where he was moving," he said.
"But we are now very confident this fox as met his match".
