Fox Attack

[bluemoon]

We actually watched them release the foxes in a field over back, so I think I have grounds to say this and it is not rumour mongering unfortunately. We have complained to the police/RSPCA to try and get it stopped. These foxes do suffer as there food is not so ready made and the strange thing is you know a newly released one because it doesn't smell at all even if your down wind of it.

Do they bathe them before releasing them then? Quick trip to the local poodle parlour perhaps? This makes me sooooo angry. We're all trying to keep our chickens to the best of our ability, regardless of where we live, and yes I know people locally who have lost their poultry to fox attacks, but I doubt they'd put the culprit in their Ford Focus and drive it into the country, even if it smelled of lavender water. To accuse urban poultry keepers for your fox problem strikes me as being rather sad when it's something that unfortunately we all have to deal with and we would be better coming up with helpful suggestions that we could all try rather than mud slinging.

[TEB]

Government threatens legal action over urban foxes are being dumped in the Westcountry

[Paulottie]

Well, my sympathies and empathies, obviously it was a bad day for Sussex lights in West Sussex yesterday. I unfortunately only had two which meant the other had to go to a new home.

[chicken slave]

Do they bathe them before releasing them then? Quick trip to the local poodle parlour perhaps? This makes me sooooo angry. We're all trying to keep our chickens to the best of our ability, regardless of where we live, and yes I know people locally who have lost their poultry to fox attacks, but I doubt they'd put the culprit in their Ford Focus and drive it into the country, even if it smelled of lavender water. To accuse urban poultry keepers for your fox problem strikes me as being rather sad when it's something that unfortunately we all have to deal with and we would be better coming up with helpful suggestions that we could all try rather than mud slinging.

I never said anything about urban poultry keepers at all. I said that someone was releasing/relocating urban foxes which makes me mad as they have no sense of survival in this environment and have no fear of humans so end up trapped or shot. These foxes are coming from relocation/animal centres and they believe it is best for the foxes to be out of the cities and in the country.
The sad part is people twisting it and not reading fact that these people have been seen doing it and approached but until we can get the local authority here at the time of release we cannot do anything about it.
It is a huge problem in our area both for the wildlife and livestock and a solution will eventually be found if people would work together and realise the full impact both on the foxes and the location they are released.

[Hilary B]

I never said anything about urban poultry keepers at all. I said that someone was releasing/relocating urban foxes which makes me mad as they have no sense of survival in this environment and have no fear of humans so end up trapped or shot. These foxes are coming from relocation/animal centres and they believe it is best for the foxes to be out of the cities and in the country.
The sad part is people twisting it and not reading fact that these people have been seen doing it and approached but until we can get the local authority here at the time of release we cannot do anything about it.
It is a huge problem in our area both for the wildlife and livestock and a solution will eventually be found if people would work together and realise the full impact both on the foxes and the location they are released.

The 'myths' site does say that is happens on a small scale. I've no doubt that established adult foxes would then return as quickly as possible to their homes, but presumably the ones relocated tend to be youngsters who would be due to move out seeking new territory anyway (because those are the most likely to get caught, being inexperienced).
The other possibility (with much the same effect) is that a fox cub gets adopted (possibly an orphan, or thought to be an orphan), brought up in captivity, and 'returned to the wild' as a near adult. This would actually explain its excellent healthy condition, and the relative lack of smell. These misguided rescuers may well be relatively numerous.....

[Flummery]

There was something about this in Practical Poultry earlier this year. Someone denying it happens - someone else with sightings.

[bluemoon]

I delayed saying any more on this until I could have a quick word with other family members as I'm the only one who jumped ship and came to live in the city. Mum still lives in the 20 house, handful of farms, no school, no shop, one pub, upland village where we grew up and the number of cars and the uPVC windows are about the only things that have changed since and she says she still rarely sees foxes and hasn't heard any rumours about fox dumping. This was echoed by my in-laws, who also haven't moved far. BUT both my brothers who now live much further south in lowland country areas say they have heard these rumours, the eldest even says he now sees more foxes in a week than he saw in all the years of his childhood put together. The boys live 200 miles apart, so I thought there must be something in it, then one of them also mentioned that when he bought his eye-wateringly expensive house 22 years ago it was surrounded by 'traditional' farmland, whereas now it's a pesticide drenched, industrial mono-culture. His theory is that, at least in part, foxes are forced to interface more with humans and livestock these days simply because the normal food webs have collapsed. A city fox can't survive in the countryside but it seems that rural foxes are having a struggle too, because in certain areas the 'countryside' as we like to understand it simply no longer exists and farmland is little more than a desert to most forms of wildlife.
The one family member who did report more foxes whilst still living in a hill farming area also said that her district used to have an active hunt, but obviously no longer, and that her village has 'gone touristy', leading to there now being a fair few people who have started to sell free range eggs-at-the-gate. The two things in combination, she thinks, seem to have lead to a fox population boom - mind you she did hunt in her youth, so is probably biased.
Much of the problem, certainly for urban foxes, is that there seems to be no method of control except for unplanned impact with a Vauxhall Astra. If misguided 'wildlife groups' really are catching and releasing foxes then they are probably just attempting to address a need, but they are idiots. I happen to work for a national conservation charity and know that any project can take years in the planning as every possible environmental, ecological and social impact of the proposal has to be researched and discussed before anything can go ahead. A reputable, recognised group would never do anything as stupid as secretly releasing a fox on to farmland.
It's true that I have just started to keep chickens and that I have a certain emotional attachment to them that your average poultry farmer doesn't, but I'd certainly never 'get rid' of the local fox by dumping it on someone else. Besides, the one poultry farmer I did know well might not have had an emotional attachment to an individual hen - it can't be easy to think of 5000 names, - but he certainly did to his flock and I like to think that most poultry keepers, regardless of their location or flock size, are as practical he was and I'm trying to be.
As far as I can see we have a problem of too many foxes attempting to live in increasingly smaller areas and absolutely no policy - or even any real ideas - on what to do about it. But I do know that the powers that be love this type of argument as while we're all blaming each other for the problems it lets them off the hook.

[chicken slave]

Problem solved, the fox has been disposed of.

A real shame as it is a beautifully sleak creature but a killer none of the less.