The Case of the Missing Foxes

 Unfortunately, many days of work and possible new evidence in what might be causing foxes in Bristol to die (other than poison) has been lost.

About a month ago a veterinary practice diagnosed a fox collected by the Fox Study as having died from poison -this is what was called "first opinion" but the final diagnosis would be down to the pathologist after post mortem. The practice offered to keep the fox "on ice" until it could be collected for PM. It was marked "Do not remove".  Our collector went to fetch the fox and...someone had removed it and sent it for incineration.

There was nothing I could do and as vets are a monopoly in the City all I could do was contact the senior vet and explain that what could have been solid evidence in a wildlife crime was now gone and so were months of work. An apology was received but does me no good.

Eight days another seemingly health fox suddenly died. Possible signs of jaundice. On this occasion the waste management company offered to store the carcass and it was appropriately marked with location and "Do not remove" notice. 

It took seven days before post mortem was approved and our collector undertook the long journey and was handed a bagged up fox that "smelt disgusting" and so opened up the company bags to inspect it -the find it was full of maggots.  That is not a fox kept chilled -maggots to not burst out from a chilled body. Also, the fox did not look like the one in the in situ photograph (which is one reason I insist on such photos) and there was no "Do not remove" or even location notice and it was found 3 miles from where "our" fox was. It was useless for any type of examination. Apparently the waste company which stores all animals found dead on streets etc for disposal so has a big storage facility, has unscheduled people/companies arrive and it is assumed one of these removed the "Do not remove" fox.

I feel sorry for the unpaid volunteer collectors having to take time and long journeys after confirmation that a body can be collected only to find the body is gone. For me it means long, hard days of work and possible evidence are gone.

However, we have one jaundiced (not confirmed) looking fox being submitted today while awaiting the test results from other foxes. 

All of the Fox Study work is unpaid for -there are no grants or other financial support and that is why we have to rely on the often slow official post mortem services as a PM can cost up to £250 a time which means that our current expenditure would have been around £2000 and though I have funded research out of my own pocket since 1976 I do not have that kind of money!  Honestly, I cannot even stretch to a body storage freezer otherwise no carcasses would have vanished on us.

I almost forgot to include two healthy looking but dead foxes (dog and vixen) that were collected by the council which 'vanished'.

But you have to make do with what you have. The Red Paper: Canids was supposed to help fund further research through sales but that never happened.

And so we carry on and, sadly, await the next healthy fox that drops dead and the headache that comes with it because we need to find out what is going on and whether it can be stopped/treated and what we discover in the City and County of Bristol may well have far reaching results for the rest ofthe UK and the largest urban fox population next to Bristol in London.