Every night, as we sit in our comfortable homes, a fight to the death is taking place close by.
Across our suburban parks and city bushland Australian native animals are being hunted down and killed by foxes and cats.
Despite the darkness it's a battle which we can now see. Wildlife officers have installed special motion-sensitive cameras in many of our parks and bush areas and the pictures they capture show the predators and their prey.
One of the biggest camera monitoring operations is run by the City of Stirling.
The night-time pictures from its cameras show foxes and cats stalking through the bush. Other daytime photos taken by wildlife officers show the grisly aftermath - dead bandicoots, headless swans and ducks which have been ripped to pieces.
At one level it's just nature at work - but our native wildlife has no defences against the introduced predators.
Over the past year the cameras have helped City of Stirling wildlife officers capture and euthanise 22 cats and 17 foxes.
Analysis of their stomach contents showed that about 60 per cent of what they ate were native animals.
Stirling acting parks and wildlife manager Graeme Fuller said the cameras helped identify where predators were active.
"They help the city develop strategies to protect the endangered animals as well as control feral animals by putting traps in the areas where they are hunting," he said.
There are about 200 native species living in Stirling's suburban bushlands, wetlands and coastal dunes, ten of which are threatened, endangered or specially protected.
"Thanks to camera monitoring and predator control efforts, the populations of the native animals are gradually growing," Mr Fuller said.
Stirling council has put wildlife monitoring cameras in Star Swamp, Trigg Bushland Reserve, Carine Open Space, Dianella Open Space and the Cottonwood Crescent Bushland Reserve.
