Foxes Hunt Deer in a Pack?

 Or so we are led to believe by the naturalist/'sportsman' Henry Tegner in his book The WhiteFoxes Of Gorfenletch (1954). The reason for this is a brief description of something he saw on his way home one evening. He writes:

"A light-yellow- coloured vixen came through the rushes on to the frozen surface of the lough. Flanking her were two smaller foxes, which I guessed to be her cubs of the previous spring. Last of all came a big, dark dog fox with a marked white tag at the end of his brush. The party trotted around the open water, but the wild swans seemed to know they were safe just so long as they kept out in the open, on their little piece of water."

Which is interesting and not particularly anything to get excited about until he notes:

"Tiring of this unprofitable prowling, the foxes set off across the moor towards Gorfenletch. Passing a cluster of round rhododendron shrubs, the yellow vixen paused with one front pad raised. with the aid of my binoculars, I could see that she was questing the air with her sensitive nose. As if by an order the rest of the pack froze. The two young foxes and the old dog dropped on to their bellies in the frozen snow. I was about to witness a most amazing drama."

At this point I ought to note that Tegner was a very well known (famous) British naturalist/'sportsman' and though I may well hate the type the observations they made were precise and there was no telling of tall tales. If Tegner told you that the following is what he observed then it can be counted on as being genuine and therein lies the problem I shall come to further on.

Tegner continues:

"Searching the ground in front of the vixen with my glasses, I saw the he4ad of a young roe buck against the dark-green underleaf of a rhododendron bush. The little buck's antlers had just started to grow again. The velvet-encased stumps stood straight up out of his head like two tiny candles. The buck lay, sheltered beneath the bush, quite oblivious of the presence of the foxes. What wind there was was blowing from him towards the pack. Seeing the young buck, the vixen now crouched, her brush twitching to and fro in her excitement.l Creeping nearer and nearer towards the buck, the vixen paused whenever the roe turned his head in her direction. She sank into the snow with her head stretched out at full length before her two forelegs. The buck never appeared to see the fox until she was within six feet of him. During the stalk the other foxes, each working on their own, gradually closed in on the roes.

"As if at a given signal, all four foxes suddenly sprang towards the young roe. The buck jumped up untouched. His white rump patch, like a huge snowball, bounced as the deer bounded over the snow-clad moor. I noticed at once that the roe was not going sound. It looked as if he had been wounded in the shoulder, for now and again he would falter in his stride.

"The foxes hunted him like a pack of hounds. The roe made a big circle across the Black burn, up over Wolfhole Rise, to turn back into the burn. He was making straight toward where I was standing in the shadows of the fir strip north of Nellie's Moss. The light began to fail, but against the white background I could still make out the four foxes as they persistently hunted the roe buck towards the shelter of the fir wood.

"The last I saw of the hunt was when the pack disappeared into the black belt of conifers.`"

The illustrations for this story show the foxes looking almost bigger than the deer but even a "young buck" would be much larger than a fox and this brings into question Tegner's account. As a naturalist and 'sportsman' Tegner would have had all of the hunting books and journals needed to know about foxes but it seems that he took the attitude "I am an expert and what I say is fact".

Tegner in A Naturalist on Speyside 1971) states that there is an incorrect belief that two species of fox exist in Scotland. He states that this may be down to foxes imported for hunting but then states that it is doubtful there were any imported into Scotland.

He is basic on his information (except for foxes estimated to have been killed per year) and does not seem to know or want to mention Hill or Mastiff foxes by name just that they are all from the same species. Tegner appears to ignore all of the historical information about these being environmental adaptions that made the types look so distinctive . It has been made clear before that the types were all V. vulpes but distinct types (we really need to get DNA testing going).

Tegner's book was written in 1971 so I assume he is referring to contemporary foxes otherwise he'd be showing himself up as an idiot. In fact, there are a number of non-fox gaffs that he makes and these are all still passed along as fact. Basically, with the pack hunt Tegner was using his imagination and ignorance of foxes.

Had I observed such an incident would I have left it at that? Absolutely not. Snow on the ground I would have checked where the deer had lain to see whether there was any sign of blood to indicate that it had been wounded. I would have also followed the tracks as far as possible looking for signs of blood or what eventually happened. The deer losing its footing in snow is not remarkable as they do so in mud also.

Foxes are inquisitive -its why they start following people (especially dog walkers) and in this they are worthy of the title "cat-like canid". I have seen foxes in a garden try to cat a rat -not coordinated but each after the rat. In fact, looking through all the books going back to the 18th century I cannot find one mention of foxes hunting as a pack -certainly play chasing and fighting as a group but not one single case of a leash of foxes hunting in a coordinated way.

Yes, foxes will feed on a dead deer and return to the carcass over a period but these are deer already dead.

This all calls into question Tegner's account. He never checked the area next day and although it sounds like curious foxes waiting and checking out something hidden by the bushes the pack hunt appears to be Tegner's interpretation and a story to show just why foxes needed to be hunted -even though he was a big supporter of shooting deer as one would soon turn into a herd and a threat to crops. Basically the old excuse for killing things ("There's one now but there'll be a hundred by summer!").

I am open to anyone who has read of foxes hunting in a pack but over 47 years of studying and researching foxes I have never come across an account. We are left with a choice as to whether Tegner made up the story as a fox hunter or simply let his lack of knowledge and imagination make up a good story for his book.

Either would show how inaccurate 'experts' can be and why I check source after source for confirmation of claims.