Coming from a Yass sheep grazing family, NSW Primary Industries Minister Katrina Hodgkinson has declared foxes a pest, issuing a pest control order which consequently makes them a higher priority for Local Land Services control.

Land Services can now take action against landholders who are not controlling fox numbers on their property.

Farmers are cheering, but fur traders like Don McGilvray of Narrandera and sports shooter Andy Mallen say the declaration would be unnecessary if shooters could get a better return for skins, as they did in the 1970s and 1980s.

"For starters, they could introduce the fox bounty and encourage and stimulate the fur trade once more," Mr Mallen said. "Professional hunters see hundreds of them and won't squeeze their trigger. It's not worth it. They are in suburbia in massive numbers," he said.

When the fur trade was at its peak, Ron Kiehne shot 17 foxes in a night which averaged $45 a skin, about $1 more than what he charges these days for his 'Silva Fox' whistles, which he sells on-line. Mr Kiehne said strong demand for pelts overseas had helped keep a check on fox numbers in Australia.

"The 'Bambi brigade' got on to that, so no we can't do that any more," Mr Kiehne said.

Mr Kiehne sells whistles which imitate panic and stress calls of a rabbit to farmers and sports shooters throughout Australia. In the past three and a-half years he has sold nearly 7000 whistles, which he says shows the extent of the problem.

"A fox will often thrill kill, they will attack a lamb and kill it and they might eat the tongue, or chew the ears off it, or burrow it to the chest and take the heart out of it and leave the rest of it. Three-quarters of a lamb will be left behind and he will go and kill another one.

Wayne Apps of Dalton, who shot up to 30 or 40 foxes a night when skins fetched $35, has just completed hay making during which time he saw plenty of foxes about.

"For every one fox you see, there are another seven you don't," he said. "There are a hell of a lot of pups about this year, no one is shooting them."

Dalton bio-dynamic lamb producer Vince Heffernan is thrilled with the declaration, not only as a self-interested sheep farmer, but as someone who cares about the broader ecology. Mr Heffernan said a dollar value should be put on the damage to the environment foxes caused by killing small mammals.

The O'Connors of Harden produce up to 18,000 lambs a year. Paul O'Connor said foxes were baited and shot. They had a devastating impact on native animals, as well as sheep.

"It is difficult to know how many lambs you are losing [to foxes], with twins and other lambs you see separated from their mothers, you know they are not going to survive the night."

They relied on 1080 poison baiting on the eve of lambing, and enlisted shooters when fox numbers threatened to get out of control.

A Land Services spokesman said people on the outer Sydney areas were keeping foxes as pets, and a fox rescue service had been established.