FOXES are in plague proportions across the Mornington Peninsula, despite a bounty on their heads.

The pest predators are running rampant across the shire, attacking lambs, chickens, native birds, small marsupials and other animals.

A $10 per head reward scheme, put in place by the State Government from March to October each year, is designed to cut numbers but doesn’t seem to have worked.

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The bounty involves people shooting foxes, half-scalping them and then disposing of the carcass responsibly.

But some are ignoring this, displaying dead foxes with skinned skulls on trees and in public parks.

A shire road worker, who asked not to be named, said he recently found two scalped foxes at Buckleys Reserve in Merricks North, and another carcass hanging from nearby Foxey’s Hangout tree.

“Kids can see them, it is horrible for them to see foxes with half their faces peeled off,” he said.

“The graphicness is scary.”

media_camera Fox numbers are out of control on the Mornington Peninsula. File photo

Wildlife expert Malcolm Legg said the bounty was not working on the Mornington Peninsula because the cost per fox was too low.

“This year (fox numbers) seem worse than other years,” Mr Legg said.

“They kill wildlife, anything the size of a rabbit down, birds and wallabies, and farmers can lose lambs, chickens too.

“Foxes are a problem for biodiversity, they contribute to species extinctions.”

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Mornington Peninsula Shire natural systems team leader Simon Thorning said “fox numbers were high in many parts of Victoria, including the Peninsula, due largely to the ready supply of food and shelter”.

He said successful fox management required coordinated use of many “humane control methods depending on the situation, including harbour removal, property hygiene, working with neighbours, shooting, baiting and trapping”.

Victorian Farmers Federation’s Gerry Leach said the bounty was a worthwhile tool, and they believed it was keeping fox numbers in check.

He said foxes were “relentless pests that cause significant problems” to farms, large and small, and also native animals and they needed to be wiped out.