Here is a rather depressing thought

 

Here is a rather depressing thought.

This morning the reported number of dead foxes has risen to 153 since January. Some of these  were submitted for post mortems as they met our study criteria. 

Personally, if the pathology people were not understaffed and under funded I would have had each dead fox we picked up undergo a post mortem even if an obvious car kill. That is common practice in some European countries where road kill is examined to see the health of the species involved and it gives a good wildlife health over view. That's Europe. This is the UK.

The alarming fact is that a large number of cubs have been victims of road traffic accidents and sadly no one stops to check but simply continue on their way. Two young cubs killed this morning but only when someone who knows about the Fox Study and to report fox deaths sees the animals do I hear about it.

We know that a large number of the foxes killed this year are vixens and some were lactating which means there were young cubs being fed that would starve (in some cases an "Aunt" fox or dog fox will bring food to cubs if the vixen is gone but no evidence of that in these cases. That means that cub mortality rate is probably higher than we expected and if the losses to traffic and disease is the same each year then we have a good explanation for the drop in numbers.

Bristol is literally a petri dish and what we find in the City is likely going to be typical of other cities and towns in the UK; pneumonia, heart and lung worm as well as various internal organ diseases. We are finding out a great deal and one fact we have is that only one of the foxes submitted had secondary rodenticide poisoning probably from eating a poisoned rat. Sudden "suspicious" deaths all tend to be RTAs -a fox looking perfectly healthy and unmarked on the outside but internal injuries and slow bleeds allowing them to move about until they collapse and die.

Oddly, local wildlife groups, of which there are a few on Face Book, are rarely the source of reports of dead foxes and badgers.  Cooperation from these groups can vary from none to very poor. Pet groups and non wildlife groups seem to be the main sources for reports. Foxes and badgers (31 dead badgers reported so far this year) do not seem to rate highly amongst wildlife groups.

As depressing as it may be it is probable, based on statistics, to think the actual deaths so far in Bristol probably totals 300. The suggestion that we might reach 1000 by the end of 2023 does not currently seem unlikely.