Fox Wild Cat and Wolverine Study Project: We Do Not Have Grey Foxes In The UK...Well, Yes We Do!

In The Red Paper 2022 Volume I -Canids I discussed foxes at length. No big surprise there! But I mentioned things I had noticed about foxes in the last 47 years since I set up the British Fox Study in 1976.

Well, sweeping dogma aside opened my eyes to the true history of foxes in the British Isles (UK, N. Ireland/Eire) such as island foxes because most books copying from other books in which the author has just cited dogma will tell you that Scottish Isles and others never had foxes and all sorts of silly explanations are given when a fox is found -"It sneaked onto a car ferry" or even "Some idiot released it on the island". the truth is that foxes are great swimmers and in many cases have existed on islands for a long time and take care of rats and even rabbits that are cited as "nuisances".

The other thing I discovered was that some foxes do have ringed tails. The old myth was that rings only appeared after fox furs were treated (tanning) but one taxidermy of a fox sent to Australia for hunting and which was killed in the 1930s has a markedly ringed tail. Enough photographic evidence now exists to show it is not rare.

In 1976 if anyone even told me that one day I would see a striped fox I would have told them to see a psychiatrist. Yet I have now seen a fox with clear stripes on its side -we nicknamed it the "thylacine fox".

Another thing that I set up was a photographic data base of foxes from around the UK and Eire. The initial idea was to look for regional types. I knew Somerset and parts of Bristol had what I termed "salt and pepper" foxes as shown below.

Before anyone asks the fox has its tail curled around to one side. The dark grey shows that there is melanism in the fox and that may well come down through descendancy from European foxes imported over the centuries. I had assumed that this was a regional thing but then realised that during the 1994/1994 mange outbreak that swept through Bristol (and I am still investigating claims that this was a deliberate spread) we lost all but roughly 6% of foxes in the City. Adding in other factors I was left with a big question mark.

The City had the cherry red type foxes, orange coloured and the salt and pepper type. Of course, I then realised that wildlife rescues were releasing foxes they had treated into the Bristol area as it was considered "safe" with no local hunt. There is nothing safe about Bristol as its roads take a high toll of foxes, badgers, otters and other wildlife. Releasing foxes into an urban environment is not a good idea although I do understand the thinking of the rescues.

With the number of foxes dying on the roads, through illness and other causes I believe the national population would now be on the precipice of extinction (again). Rescues take in cubs and adult foxes to treat and then release when ready and there are things I have certainly noticed.

One being that, although mange is always present to some degree, the number of cases increases during dispersal/rescue release periods. The first year I had assumed it was nothing. The second year I thought coincidence but the third and fourth year it was establishing a set pattern.

After almost 50 years of studying foxes along with the work I began on exotic animals and acting as a consultant to UK police forces (from 1977) you might think that helped get cooperation from rescues. It does not. Rescues flatly refused to give out any basic information on where foxes they had cared for originated or where they were released around the country. In some cases they claimed to have no record regarding where rescued or where released. I was told by one rescue that they released around 150 foxes a year yet publicly they later claimed hundreds more.

I asked whether the released foxes were microchipped and one response "Don't be ridiculous" summed up most responses. What was the point? Well, if it was found that a fox had a disease or illness then a micro chip would state where it came from so any treatment could be given or watch kept. Basic stuff really. What treatment did foxes get before release? Some said a spot on wormer but if the foxes looked okay and were given the okay that was it. Secret World in Somerset basically gives foxes treatments for most things they will encounter on release.

Rescues have a hard time and (as I can tell you from personal experience) getting donations is a hard business (and if it's "just foxes" good luck) so everything is done on a shoe string. The attitude of most rescues appears to be "We patch them up and release them. Job done." Also "foxes are put in the care of a trustee to feed and acclimatise to an area prior to and just after release. It is up to them whether they want to cooperate with you" so I asked "Can you pass the word along, please?" Response: "No, we are far too busy".

One day it will become necessary for rescues to become licence for animal safeguarding and I am afraid official government bodies do not accept "we are far too busy". Apart from welfare checks to insure that animals are not over crowded and getting the treatment they need I hope licensing does not come into force -rescues have the "It's just foxes" attitude helping them.

Really, every -every- rescue should give foxes to be released protection against the illnesses and diseases they are liable to encounter. I say "should" because, again, it all costs money and donors are not rushing forward to help.

I cannot see the rise of mange at dispersal time as mere coincidence.

And before my dear Reader rolls his/her eyes and sighs "This is going to be one of those long Hooper-Scharf posts" I will get to the point.

I mentioned the colourations of foxes and when I wrote "our grey foxes" on a post someone decided that I had no idea what I was talking about "Grey foxes are from the United States not England!" he wrote. Well, firstly, correct. Secondly, wrong (and it's the "UK" not "England"). The Grey Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) is indeed a native of North America, however, when I refer to "grey foxes" in the UK I am not referring to North America and the clue is that I am writing on British foxes.

Apart from one fox photographed some years back with a black coloured back the main foxes in Bristol were red/orange coloured (Vulpes vulpes) and the salt n pepper type. So when I saw a photograph of a grey coloured fox I sat up! I know of two grey foxes still alive but three others were all victims of car strike and so not exactly photographs I can publish here. I then found more and more signs of melanism in not just Bristol foxes but nationally. I was told by people who had been fox watching for a long time that "a very strange fox turned up. Odd colour" and when I asked at what time of the year this strange fox arrived -dispersal/rescue release time.

I found other long time foxers reporting the same thing and that more or less is good anecdotal evidence that some thing is going on. I checked the photo data base and while I expected grey colouration from the SE of England (foxes dumped after the failure of fur farming in and around London -a business that no one wants to discuss) but then I realised that the grey was spreading out more. The melanistic streak was also showing through more and more and by 2022 it was impossible to not notice.

I ought to point out that fox watchers and feeders had no idea that these colourations were unusual or noteworthy and it was a case of "They are just foxes nothing odd about the colour is there?" I wish people watching foxes and feeding them actually read up on foxes (I have a book out you know),

My thanks to the photographers but to protect animals only rough locations are given and most also did not want to be named in case they were tracked down (we have the internet after all) and animals harmed.

Above and below: Bristol 2022 (c)2023 respective copyright owner. This is the photograph that really made me understand that there were changes going on and to get a better photograph for me the woman who took this threw some food out for a daytime shot. Which almost makes it (in sunlight) look like a totally different fox.

The following two photographs are from a woman in the SE of England who, when she first encountered this beauty, jumped as it was so tall. Very likely a hybrid with North American Red Fox

Above and below 2021 SE England (c)2023 respective copyright owner The fox below was also tall and likely a descendant of the one above. These tall foxes were all poisoned by someone in the street involved each year and police and RSPCA had no interest in investigating -hence why we protect all locations.

We have the natural distribution of former fur farm foxes and colourations and those can be expected over 70 plus years but then we have a spreading out that does not make much sense and this I believe is human aided.

A rescue takes a batch of foxes (some with the melanistic trait) and releases them then nature takes its course and we no longer have a regional variation/type. Some twenty years worth of work was basically sunk because rescues were releasing foxes around the UK and therefore new introduced foxes were breeding with or outbreeding the old locals. That happens naturally but so often humans have a hand in these things.

Farmers complain that there are too many wild rabbits -how that affects a dairy farmer I have no idea- well, the main food prey of the fox is the rabbit and this is followed by the rat. Farmers claiming it is "hard to make ends meet" are spending a lot of money to pay shooters to go out and kill rabbits and foxes -it breaks the prey-predator chain and is not good for the environment. Oddly I spoke to one farmer who stopped fox shooting in the 1990s and "makes a few quid" having his son go out at night to guide "punters" on fox watches. One thing that made the farmer change his mind was going around the farm one day and seeing how many rats the foxes were killing -something noted back even in 18th century texts which is why foxes were used by rat catchers to work in conjunction with terriers (in case you are wondering the foxes were far better at the job).

So, you will be pleased to read, I come to the end of this post. We saw a massive influx of European foxes over the centuries as Old British foxes were wiped out and then, as I have written before, there were various other fox extinction crises so the New foxes that replaced the Old were replaced by others and today we have seen a major shift to the point that a grey fox is seen as normal and it may eventually lead to melanistic foxes becoming more common than they already are.

Monday 13 March 2023

We Do Not Have Grey Foxes In The UK...Well, Yes We Do!

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