What We Are Learning About British Foxes

Photo Alan Seymour

 There is unique information on urban fox behaviour that you do not read about in the books. This is because 99% of them are dedicated to the wild foxes and so repeat, cut n paste and repeat again old material.

Why? Because no one has seriously studied them. They are "just foxes".

Urban foxes and fox feeders are not mentioned in any of the text books up to or after 1990 that I have. The reason for this is simple. As wild canids foxes used to raid the old dustbins for scraps of food and this was also done by domestic cats and domestic dogs....not to mention the occasional tramp!

In 1976 there were no known fox feeders. Most people had no idea that a fox might be skulking around their gardens. Certainly they would not be deliberately buying food for foxes. Some might be putting food out for hedhehogs as they were (unlike up to the early 1900s when there was a bounty on killing them) "the gardeners helper" -taking care of slugs.

Even up until the 1980s I had never heard of fox feeders only of naturalists counting the number of rats or mice the foxes were estimated to kill each week (one farmer-naturalist did this by counting the number of rat tails he found; the only part foxes did not consume). Sadly, poisons put out for rats almost certainly killed many hedgehogs and foxes.

It appears that some time in the late 1980s, and certainly by 1994/1995, people had started to secretly feed foxes coming into their gardens. Often left overs but later on chicken, fruit and eggs. Some people even started keeping recordes of the foxes that visited them and can trace some foxes in 2021 being descendents of ones they began feeding in the 1990s.

In 1994/1995 a major outbreak of mange was estimated to have killed off so many foxes in Bristol (with the largest urban fox population outside of London) that only around 6% survived. It was this point in history that feeders wanted to stop the suffering and treatments were found for mange from homeopathic (for early stages) to more chemical meds for worse cases.

This meant that not only were foxes becoming habituated to humans -NOT a good idea since it makes them easy victims for the anti-fox people- but they were getting well fed -way about the 100 cal or so they need per day. It also meant that they were denning in gardens or close to the feeders. Cubs still die but their chances of survival are greater now than at any other time. Many foxes -from what I have learnt and can estimated (and it is a "guesstimate")- around 200+ per year in the UK are treated for mange and survive it and go on to create new generations.

It is VERY STRONGLY advised that feeders never coax wild foxes into their homes as this could be disasterous (for the fox) in the future.

My very first sighting of an urban fox in Bristol was as I was walking along Pennywell Road in Bristol at about 0630 hrs one summer morning. I heard the fast padding behind me and thought a dog had gotten loose. Then a fox rushed by looking as though it was running for its life and it was a largish dog fox. I turned to see a VERY determined looking big tom cat in pursuit of the fox. How it ended I have no idea but the fox was faster!

I wondered about fox-domestic cat interaction after that. I can say that from 1976-2021 the only genuine incident of a fox with a dead cat in its mouth I have heard of involved a cat killed by a car and it was in the gutter over 24 hours. Foxes eat road-kill, Its convenient food and some feeders do look for dead birds and other road-kill to feed foxes.

What many people see are not dead cats carried off by foxes but cubs being moved to another location -natural fox behaviour. There have been claims of "two foxes killed my cat and tore it to pieces" and "I have the fox killing my cat on CCTV" but questions pop up straight away such as WHY the person stood there watching their cat being attacked and ripped up by foxes? Or; WHERE is the cctv footage? Challenged, those making the posts either delete them or are not heard of again and their social media accounts are very basic or are connected to hunt groups.

Recently, someone posted that foxes were trying to kill his cats. Then it was his three legged cat. Then it became focussed on the three legged cat which froze as foxes approached (its front leg was ripped off by a dog years ago we were told). The only food in the garden were bird feeders. Did the poster have any video footage that could be studied so that we could see what was going on -was the interaction the foxes trying to play with the cat (plenty of videos of that) and it was misconstrued as "attempting to kill" the cat? If two adult foxes were brave enough to they would have. The poster just said he'd go somewhere else for advice and that was it. It seems almost fox hunt trolling especially when viewing the poster's social media (lack of) profile. Why did he not respond to advice or requests for him to video or submit any video footage he had so that we could offer more appropriate advice?

Foxes are well fed -rather like feral cats- if not deliberately then from stealing left out cat food or food left for hedgehogs. There is also plenty offootage of foxes who visit feeders killing rats and also mice. Foxes are well fed and to risk injury by attacking a cat makes no sense and there is really no evidence for such a thing and even scientific surveys have shown that a cat being killed by a fox is at the bottom of the list and really only included "in case" -all other threats tend to be disease or human related.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of urban foxes is that feeders do not see unusual fur patterns or colours just a fox. Feeders have inadvertently supplied so much information that it will take a while to sort through but totally over turns all previous data on British foxes.

Even reportsfrom Bristol have surprised me. Either "a fox is a fox" meant everyone just assumed that meant the"little red dog" and we have always had the variations noted or something major has happened to the British fox population from Scotland down to the very south of England.

Without funding the work is slow but it is oming together.