Foxes and Badgers -A Few Facts and History

 

It is often claimed that foxes only became urbanised around 1936 -which is a very precise date and cited without source which is what those of a scientific bent are meant to do.

It is also claimed that fox feeders are a modern thing when we know that there is anecdotal evidence of them being around in the 19th century (sadly in a few cases this lead to fox deaths).

We still read in books "We wonder how foxes and badgers might interact if they cross paths during the night". If you are laughing -stop it. These are proper paid naturalists and zoologists and, well, they depend on field naturalists for their information.

We know that badgers and foxes generally do nothing. They pass each other as well as feed in the same garden or field and we also know that in certain very large and old badger setts foxes also live. The only possible conflict -generally a grunt, growl or nudge- is when a fox gets too close to badger cubs or badgers get too close to fox cubs. Natural protection of its young. I can find no account of actual badger-fox fights and that is probably because the fox is not stupid enough to think it can take on a house cat let alone anything as tough as the badger.

Wild living foxes will take food where ever it is and if people do not know how to protect their chickens then they are fair game. It has to be said that there are many accounts where foxes ignore "freely available" chickens to go out to hunt rabbits and the importance of rabbits in a fox diet cannot be over stressed. After a myxomatosis outbreak in the 1950s that killed off rabbits in the SE of England foxes starved. They were that dependent.

Read this from The Eastbourne Gazette - Wednesday 19th February 1947

In point of fact even 'great sportsmen-naturalists' like John Colquhoun forbade hunting of badgers on his lands (he did let both of his sons kill one a piece "because") and others agreed that badgers were completely harmless and never caused a problem -they were still hunted for 'fun' however and one has to remember that in certain parts of the country they were killed -cubs and adults- for fun as well as for bounties. The original British fox types did not survive this type of human action and became extinct as did hares, deer and other hunted wildlife -don't worry; more were imported! So how did badgers ever survive? I found out quite by accident and am still backing up the data collected before reporting on this.

But, surely, badgers and foxes in towns and cities -how?? I found this in The Belfast Telegraph - Wednesday 22nd September, 1965:

We know wild rabbits come into Bristol and are found in the oddest places -thanks mainly to railway lines and disused tracks/cycle paths. Even muntjac deer are sighted in central Bristol.

When it comes to badger locations I never ever publish those. In fact I have been a bit of a pain and even been on the receiving end of some nasty comments (not from the original posters) when I comment to someone to please remove a location or comment to the effect that badgers live close by and give a time schedule for where and when they are seen each night! Snaring goes on even in the city. It goes on everywhere for 'fun' and as I was surprised to find out -some badgers killed are sold to taxidermists as "road-kill".

I was kicked off of one Face Book taxidermy group when I asked how a certain person found up to six badgers a week dead on the same short length of quiet country road? I explained that given the location I could contact badger groups, etc so that they could monitor and see how to trey to prevent that many 'accidental' deaths. The fella was making a nice earning from these 'road-kill' badgers and my question was apparently offensive -I was removed from the group and blocked!

What I do is list areas where we know there are badgers/setts so that if a sow is killed during cub season we can look for orphaned cubs. That's it. Other than that we leave them to get on with their lives.

If you look at the City of Bristol you will see the Old or Central area. Look on a map and you will find Totterdown, Filton, Knowle, Whitchurch, Fishponds -a large number of what were villages now making up the City and County of Bristol and, apart from construction the City has been kept fairly green and open despite council attempts to try to build on green spaces and areas of special interest. That badgers survive in some areas is down mainly to this historical enveloping of so many villages into one city -much as London as done over the decades.

Use of things such as rodenticides is not good for the environment and definitely not good for badgers, foxes, feral and domestic cats as well as hedgehogs and even birds such as owls and buzzards and hawks -even non predator birds nibbling at bait die. Where you have a good environment you will have prey -rats, mice and rabbits. Sadly, due to roads and cars as well as illness you will have dead animals. These all attract the predators as well as scavengers; foxes, badgers, hawks and buzzards; even the hedgehog (which was being killed for a bounty in the 19th and early 20th century -including in Bristol) "the gardener's friend" did its part in nibbling at carcasses in the wild and on roads.

That we have all of this on our door-step, even in central Bristol, is something we should cherish and preserve at all costs for future generations and prevent the selling off of green areas because with so many old industrial estates lying empty or semi empty there mis no excuse to destroy the environment. Learn about all aspects of wildlife and the environment because, despite what some might think, humans are not the most important thing.