Just how do you outfox a fox, especially if it's to save endangered wildlife?

While a fox famously outsmarted a group of upset farmers in the Roald Dahl classic Fantastic Mr Fox, at Fingal Head south of the Gold Coast, landowners and the local council have come together to try to control a growing problem.

Foxes are attacking native wildlife.

A fox captured by a Tweed Shire Council monitoring camera. ( Supplied: Tweed Shire Council )

The Tweed Byron Aboriginal Land Council's Banahm Slabb helped set traps for the foxes with workers from the Tweed Shire Council.

"It's pretty hard because foxes are pretty smart animals, there's a lot of work in it and a lot of thought," he said.

"First we got monitoring cameras and set them up for three weeks to monitor foxes and where they went.

"Then we got the traps in, and where we knew where the foxes were, we laid the traps."

Banahm Slabb and Bijang Slabb have helped council workers trap foxes at Fingal Head. ( ABC Gold Coast: Elise Kinsella )

He said the foxes have been affecting the numbers of native species that the Aboriginal community sustainably hunts.

Tweed Shire Council's manager of natural resources, Jane Lofthouse, said while the number of foxes in the region was not known, they were throughout the region.

At Fingal Head, though, the problem was more critical.

"We've got nice big areas of coastal bushland, which is habitat to lots of birds and animals, particularly ground-nesting birds such as the bush stone-curlew, also the beach stone-curlew," she said.

"The beach stone-curlew is especially vulnerable because there are only, that we know of, 12 breeding pairs in the whole of NSW, so if we have one here on Fingal it is important we help them to breed."

The fox trapping program would run for two weeks at Fingal Head.

"We're really trying to reduce the population by any breeding adults that are out there," Ms Lofthouse said.

Other parts of the Tweed Shire to be affected includes Murwillumbah where resident Linda Brannian has foxes on her property.

"We have seen family groups with adults and kits," she said.

"We have seen foxes on tracks, they tend to be dusk and dawn nocturnal, so you have to be up in the middle of the night to catch them."

She was also worried about the native wildlife.

"I have a lot of ground-dwelling and or nesting birds on my property and I am always concerned about their fate when we have fox activity on our property," she said.

A fox is seen hunting in the Tweed Shire at night. ( Supplied: Tweed Shire Council )

Ms Brannian said the built-up areas within the Tweed were easier for foxes to live in.

"Some things do favour fox numbers, some of the peri-urban backyards they can seek refuge in, whereas rural landowners were more likely to be baiting and shooting and taking care of the foxes."

One of the areas the foxes have taken to is the Coolangatta Tweed Heads Golf Club's 36 holes.

Tucked between the Tweed River and a busy shopping centre and industrial area, the course has proved a happy hunting ground for a group of foxes.

Course superintendent Peter Lonergan starts his work day just before 5 o'clock in the morning, and sees foxes just about every day.

"This year has been a bumper year for them, so there are more than I have seen before," he said.

Foxes have spread throughout the Tweed Shire in Northern NSW. ( Supplied: Tweed Shire Council )

Mr Lonergan estimated the fox population at the course had doubled this year.

"Normally you have three or four you see regularly, but this year has been constantly or regularly eight or 10," he said.

He said the foxes sometimes dug holes in bunkers but otherwise did not damage the course.

He believed they lived off birds they hunted.

"Hard to say what birds they do attack, generally we really think they are ibis," he said.

"Most of the feathers we see around the place are white ones and that is generally ibis."

The Tweed Shire Council's trapping program at Fingal Head will last for two weeks.