Nearly four decades ago zoologist Michael Thompson, then at the University of Adelaide in Australia, made an alarming discovery: invasive red foxes were gobbling up more than 90 percent of all the turtle eggs laid along the banks of Australia’s Murray River. Thompson’s surveys also revealed a disproportionate number of older turtles, suggesting that fox predation had already reduced the amount of juveniles in the river. If no one took action, he warned, the formerly abundant turtles would eventually disappear.
