Wildlife in Magnetic Island deserves better
How many times have we heard from bona fide rehabbers/wildlife carers that wildlife is often brought to them much too late or they had to clean up the mess created by the untrained rescuers who took it upon themselves to care for the wildlife? Know that when this happens, you also take away precious time rehabbers have to help another animal.
If not properly trained, you can endanger the lives and cause undue distress to the animals you are trying to help during rehabilitation and/or after release.
MagneticIsland located in the Coral Sea is over 70% national park. With such abundance of wildlife, it also means that humans are a daily threat. Our encroachment into wildlife habitats have resulted in deaths and injuries of wildlife from being run over, to being attacked by domesticated animals of irresponsible owners. Wildlife needs our help more than ever. We can help by either:
1) Supporting legitimate wildlife organisations and trained wildlife carers.
2) If injured wildlife is found, keep it warm, dry and in a quiet place. DO NOT feed and DO take them to a trained and certified rehabber as soon as possible.
The rule in rescuing and rehabbing animals is “DO NO HARM”. Whilst SybelleFoxcroft preaches this, she will not abide by it and claims to provide “education and training to wildlife carers”. Foxcroft is neither trained nor certified, and lacks the necessary hands-on practical experience to treat and rehabilitate wildlife or educate anyone:
Having university “degrees”, buying books in veterinary nursing on domesticated animals/pets, and being an army medic (over 30 some years ago) does not translate to competency, nor qualifies one to treat wildlife. If it did, there would be no need for wildlife carers to undergo training to gain knowledge about the various aspects of different animals like for example their nutritional needs and caging requirements or veterinary schools. Even then, not all veterinarians know how to treat widlife/exotics. Having university degrees does not necessarily translate to intelligence either:
Foxcroft’s arrogance and ignorance has caused undue suffering to numerous wildlife in her care. One such wildlife was an adult male agile wallaby, hit and run over by a car which she shared on her #Cee4Life facebook page on May 15th 2018:
She commented that she had spoken with the vet over the phone and that the wallaby is “in no pain” and that her “quals are good enough to administer aid”:
Experienced and trained wildlife carers pleaded with Foxcroft on social media to take the injured wallaby to her local macropod specialist:
Her local macropod specialist even reached out to her. What Foxcroft did was egregious, she never returned the call, would not answer her phone and deleted their comments:
The wallaby suffered tremendous pain for 40 plus hours whilst it was “gently cared for at the wildlife center”. Foxcroft omitted from her post that the wallaby was ultimately confiscated by other interstate macropod coordinators after they saw her post and they took it to the vet:
There is no “Wildlife Center” in the island as claimed. She lied. She also left out that xrays showed that the wallaby was blinded by a depressed skull fracture:
She even undermined the vet’s decision to euthanise the wallaby who had sustained crippling injuries, saying she would have cared for the wallaby for “however long” to elicit comments of praise from her followers.
If Foxcroft’s “quals” were “good enough” as she claimed, she would have realised that the wallaby needed immediate veterinary attention due to the severity of his injuries:
Fast forward to May 2019, one year later, she puts out her narrative of lies in her pathetic attempt to cover up her malefaction:
She claimed:
1) that she knew the wallaby was going to be euthanised – lie. Euthansia was never mentioned in her original 2018 post.
2) the vet was no where to be found – lie. In her original post in May 2018 she said she had spoken with the vet over the phone and her “quals is good enough”. Help was also available to her but she refused to take calls from other wildlife carers.
3) that the wallaby was suffering, so she “chose” to remove the ticks to prevent further suffering – lie. In her original post of May 2018 she said that the wallaby was not in any pain.
4) that she would have shot the wallaby if she had a gun – lie. One year ago, said she hopes he pulls through . Then said she would have cared for the wallaby not matter how long it took. ( to undermine the vet’s decision to euthanise the wallaby).
The cruelty Foxcroft inflicted upon wildlife in her care did not stop with this just this wallaby.
In more recent examples, on July 1st 2020, Foxcroft did a live stream where she was attempting to “educate” her followers about colloidial silver as she spritzed at a very scared brush tail possum she had just captured. Despite the possom screeching in fear and clearly in distress, that did not matter to Foxcroft. Look at the rubbish strewn all over the table and floor. Foxcroft describes her rescue service MIWC as “Highly experienced, qualified and ethical”. Does she look competent, qualified, ethical and capable of educating anyone? She has since removed the video from public viewing:
Here is a close up of her spritzing at the edge of the cage, not on the wound. You can see the liquid dripping off the side of the cage:
On August 2020, a male agile wallaby she named Pedro suffered for 3 days before it was euthanised. Look at the botched bandaging on the tail with no padding. As an army medic for some 20 plus years, she should have known that improper application of bandage and use of bandaging materials can do more harm than good. Again, the post has been deleted:
Inflated by her ego and grandiosity of self importance, Foxcroft continues to educate the public with a hypocrital post on October 23rd 2020 in her “rescue service” social media page:
Whilst she repeatedly violated section 14.2.4.2 of the Department of Environmental Science (DES) Code of Practice by allowing the joey Suki to cohabit with her cats.
The following pictures and videos showed that Foxcroft was solely responsible for humanising Suki. In the unlikely event that “someone” humanised Suki, why didn’t Foxcroft take appropriate steps to ‘wild’ Suki up?
Rather than admit the error of her ways, take responsibility and learn from it, she fabricated a lie and cast blame on “someone” based on her suspicion.
She also said that Suki had to be ” kept away from other wallabies to avoid toxoplasmosis”. This comment from Foxcroft is very troubling because:
1) a macropod can only infect another macropod through vertical transmission (i.e from mother to joey).
2) Macropods can also be infected by accidentally eating the sporulated oocysts (resistant and infective stage) of the Toxoplasma Gondii parasites which cats have contaminated the environment with their feces (T. Gondii) when they graze.
3) Other wildlife known as the intermediate hosts get infected through predation and scavenging of infected animals/infected raw meat. Note: intermediate host means that parasites reproduce by cloning themselves inside the hosts tissues and muscles to form cysts.
4) Domestic and feral cats, the definitive hosts of the T. Gondii is where the parasites can only reproduce inside the cats to form occysts/fertilized eggs. Cats can also get infected through predation/scavenging of infected animals /infected raw meat and by coming into contact with infected feces of another cat.
5) Wildlife and cats can also get infected through vertical transmission.
So:
1) Why was Suki kept separated from the other wallabies when she is not at risk?
2) Why was Foxcroft unconcern that her cats may infect Suki and allow association, since it is a known fact that cats are a major source for the spread of the zoonotic protozoan parasites?
3) Was serology testing done to determine if the other wallabies have toxoplasmosis and were they treated with antibiotics?
It is a fact that only domestic and wild cats excrete the oocysts, shedding them in their feces, contaminating the environment and infecting wildlife. Intermediate hosts do not shed oocysts.
Instead of helping to prevent the spread of toxoplasmosis by keeping her cats indoors, the self annoited conservationist allows them to roam free range outdoor, killing and eating wildlife that may be infected. It is a fact that cats are ferocious wildlife killers. If Foxcroft had been successful in training her cats as she would often claim, why were they chasing/hunting lizards? The cats are not at fault here as their behaviour is instinctive, they don’t know any better. No one hates cats but people do hate irresponsible cat owners as the fault lies with them.
There are also reports of acute toxoplasmosis brought on by stress in captive macropods in some zoos worldwide. It is interesting to know that a zoo where a wallaby was infected has a garden allotment next to it which has a good population of stray cats. The wallaby is thought to have ingested the oocysts from the ground. The stray cats were often seen in the zoo and is thought to be the likely source of the contamination. You would think that being a zoo supporter, Foxcroft would know this.
It is clear that Foxcroft’s university education did not help her comprehend the toxoplasmosis infection nor raised her IQ.
Watch how she kept looking to her left instead of her camera, obviously trying to read off the toxoplasmosis information she had googled, from her computer screen. It is obvious she has no clue what she is talking about:
She bragged being a university graduate, yet she doesn’t know the difference between a host and a carrier. She can’t even pronounce the word “intermediate”, as she pronounced it as ” intermedia”. How difficult is it to pronounce “toxoplamosis” or “intermediate’? Afterall she likes to remind everyone that she is a graduate. “Learn to study in university”? Doesn’t look like she learned to pronounce in school.
Despite her lack of understanding on the subject, she “educated” the public anyway with her misinformation and portrayed herself to be an expert:
A few days after Foxcroft said that Suki had to be separated from other wallabies to prevent her from being infected with toxoplasmosis by the other wallabies, she released a live stream contradicting herself. She now claimed that Suki had to be kept separated from the others in case she is diseased. Again, there is no “wildlife sanctuary” in the island. It is a bald-faced lie:
Then she told her followers that Suki would be going to a sanctuary:
A couple of months later in April 2019, she announced that Suki had started her soft release if only it was not so asinine. No trained and legitimate rehabber would put an animal in soft release, only to take it ‘home” at the end of the day, treating the enclosure like day care.
The goal in the rehabilitation of injured or sick wildlife is to nurse it back to health or in the case of an orphan, raise it to a stage where both can be safely and successfully released back into their natural environment:
Judging by how she cared for Suki and how she conducted the soft release, it was not a surprise that about a month later, Foxcroft announced to her followers that the soft release was not going well. She said that she was looking for ” a ultra beautiful sanctuary” for her and has found the perfect place:
There is no wildlife sanctuary in Magnetic Island. She lied. It is her home. It is illegal to keep wildlife as a pet. Watch at the end of the video when one of her cats went off to chase a lizard/wildlife and Foxcroft was very indifferent about it. What does she thinks her cat will do when he catches the lizard? Share recipes?
Perhaps Foxcroft’s most astounding hypocrisy is where she decry others for using animals as props whilst doing the same herself:
The deep rooted jealousy she has of other wildlife organisation’s ability to fundraise is evident. Maybe if she did the right thing for animals, stop her incessant lies, produce results, and not just think of herself for a change, people may donate to her organisation Cee4life.
The hypocrisy and lies dribbling from Foxcroft’s mouth is staggering. Her stories will often change depending on what narrative she is trying to sell to her followers.
Now that her mask has been ripped off, her lies exposed, Foxcroft has recently started to limit her botched wildlife care posts to just her naive and unsuspecting followers/friends.
It is crystal clear that Foxcroft is unconcern and has no respect for the welfare of the wildlife in her care. They are merely tools for her to paint herself as an animal hero. A prop for her ego. It is a pattern.
If you love wildlife and would like to become a wildlife carer, please don’t listen to a hack, do the right thing, get proper training and certification. Wildlife deserves better.
A. Tiger