I think that I have written before that the British Fox Study and its Fox Deaths Project is often seen as a dead animal collection service. "Got a dead fox in my garden and I don't want it there -can you collect asap!" No.
We, Zoe Webber and myself in conjunction with the pathologist we use, decided that we would go as far as 50 foxes submitted for post mortem examination. I think that the pathologist would be happy to continue but official funds are not endless over "just foxes". We might -might- go to 60 if anything significant is found.
I believe we are up to Fox no. 44 at the moment so it is a very tight situation. We can obviously not tell if a good conditioned fox is RTA (victim of a car) or not if there are no external injuries and most tend to be internal so a "squishy stomach" when probed might be a giveaway. We have to go by a strict criteria where the fox looks young, has jaundice and other signs.
To make it clear we have found absolutely no evidence of foxes in Bristol being deliberately poisoned and the only one we have had was secondary poisoning -it probably ate poisoned rats over a prolonged period before the poison built up (this is why you should never put down rat or mouse poison) -foxes, cats and owls will take care of them.
We have had a problem with vets stating that a fox taken to them (they do not carry out toxicological tests) "looks like rat poison" or "Looks like poison". How many of those matter-of-fact statements have been true? None A vet can say whatever they want but we do not until we have a factual post mortem report that states cause of death.
We have had no, and all foxes submitted now must be swabbed and checked, cases of foxes with Avian Influenza Virus.
We have had no foxes with adenovirus which is odd if rescues are correct (they are not) in stating "adenovirus is rampant in UK foxes" -rescues are not carrying out post mortems so where they get this 'fact' is unknown. Over 40 foxes and we find everything but a case involving adenovirus. That speaks for itself.
We cannot take every fox. That is a fact that we lament, as does the pathologist, as even an RTA fox can tell us what the fox population has in the way of health problems. As of today, Sunday, 05 03 2023 I have listed 50 (reported) fox deaths in Bristol -there were four reported dead in odd circumstances on Friday (03 03 2023) but as we could not get to them we have no idea as to cause of death.
There are two wildlife/fox rescuers in Bristol and they do not get paid or even have their petrol money refunded. It is voluntary (before anyone asks I do not get paid a penny) and on occasions long journeys are involved -including getting foxes submitted to the labs. There is a lot of stress involved in this for these people.
We also cannot keep a "fresh" fox to submit later as we have no freezer to keep a carcass(es) in. We have tried appealing to raise funds for one or even asked whether there is an old working freezer available. Tried for 3 years so we lose foxes because of weekends and bank holidays.
Those foxes reported, even obvious RTA ones, that we do not collect are still listed on the Bristol Fox Deaths Register so that we can identify the most dangerous roads (not just for foxes as we have the Bristol Badgers Death Register also). The City does need wildlife underpasses but it is very unlikely Bristol City Council would even think about that.
The findings will have national implications and what we find in Bristol is just as likely to apply to Birmingham, Bradford, Hull and other towns and cities. Yes, we would like to continue the project when unusual fox deaths that meet our criteria pop up but that is out of our hands. It took a year-and-a-half of intense (daily) effort to get the current project going but you never know,
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