I have given up trying to fund raise for the fox work to continue as it seems that, honestly, not a lot of people care about foxes in wildlife groups or social media groups.
However, Zoe Webber came up with two interesting graphics that show how busy we (and the pathologist) have been. Zoe runs the Bristol Fox Death Project with me. The first graphic is a screenshot of the Google map showing where each fox was picked up -on the map you can move pins around to see all the locations. This map is not available to the public.
Later in the year I hope to pull together all of the reports to date and publish so that (at a modest cost that goes toward further work) anyone can access the first year of the project.
The chart does show that there is no mass fox poisoner at work and in fact poison (secondary rodenticide poisoning) is very low down on the list.
The problem is that we lose so many specimens as during holidays and weekends we are bound by the pathology hours so need to keep carcasses frozen or chilled. Despite a year of asking Bristol wildlife and naturalist groups no one has offered freezer space or an old freezer!
People not reporting dead foxes (as they do not report dead badgers) is a problem. Then we have the people who decide that after 3-4 days of walking past a dead fox or having a dead fox in their garden they will get in touch. These foxes are of no use to us due to decomposition and you have to wonder why people just ignore dead foxes being there for so long.
Zoe Webber actually deserves a great deal more credit than I do since she is the person who goes out and checks and collects foxes and manages to keep on top of what information has come back from the pathologist (it tends to get lost in amongst the huge piles of papers I have!).
So, we are still here and doing our best and we really do need far more support even if it is "just foxes".
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