The above photograph of two more dead foxes in Bristol was sent to me this morning.
It is very suspicious that two foxes are found dead together -you can get that in car strikes on roads but on a park pathway?
This is what we would categorise as "very suspicious" and definitely two that we would submit for post mortem examination. However, we will be losing these two as we have lost others in the past year.
During a normal week Zoe can pick up and take the foxes in next day but foxes tend to turn up dead on Fridays and bank holidays which means the two just found could not be submitted until Tuesday morning. By that time they would be beyond useful with decomposition, etc.
The problem is that this is work not financed by a grant and every penny has to come out of our depleted pockets so a freezer to store carcasses is not something we can afford. In the last year I have asked on the three main Bristol naturalist groups as well as the smaller local ones whether anyone has an old working freezer they could donate or even if they have a freezer we can use for temporary storage (there are a number of taxidermists on groups who have their own freezers). Not a single response.
Everyone seems "interested" in the PM results but it seems that foxes are not something they can be that bothered about (similar with the badger deaths I look into).
Each find like this could help us pin-point poisoning of foxes (and secondary animals) or even illegal snaring which is going on. Disease seems unlikely as two foxes being ill and dropping dead on the same spot are odds of thousands to one.
This is why we ask for donations to the work -not to live a good life but carry out important work. Well, important if you care or have any interest in foxes and to date it seems that very few have.
"Just dead foxes"
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