Tracking wildlife Remotely?

 There seems to be a weird belief going around that if you microchip a wild animal or pet it can be tracked.

The current technology we have does not make it possible to fit a GPS into a microchip to remotely track, say, foxes. For that you need a radio collar and that is very restrictive on the area you can cover.  

Putting a radio collar on a fox in, say, Filton will only let you see that fox's travels and position. There may be certain things within that area that can change the dynamics in the life of an urban fox that does not exist in another area. That means you can leap to a lot of incorrect conclusions. It can tell you how and where the fox has a territory and how far it travels within that territory.  

Tellus Light GPS collar on a Fox in Great Britain. Copyright Dawn Scott

To get a picture of territories and how foxes are living the best method is knowing local fox watchers and feeders and hearing what they have to say about injuries to foxes, number of cubs born and which is the dominant dog and vixen -some of the observers can trace foxes in 2023 right back to the fox's great grandparents.

The idea of microchipping foxes so that if they are found dead we can get some background info on them is interesting but impractical. Secret World in Somerset is the only rescue I have found that microchips foxes it treats and releases. Those foxes can be microchipped as they are taken in while sick or injured. The idea that we can go around trapping then microchipping every fox in, say, Bristol is totally impractical because (1) there are not enough people to carry out what would be full time and all hours work. (2) the project would call for a lot of humane cage traps, (3) the cost of microchipping I would not even like to guess at.

In the UK , depending on where you live, you can expect microchipping by a vet or vet nurse to cost around £15 – £25. The cost of getting your pet microchipped often only covers the microchip itself. This means there may also be a small fee when changing your pet's details. Say you were able to launch such a microchipping program then just 100 foxes would cost (basic) £1500 to £2500. And if you microchipped 200 foxes that's £3000 to £5000 and with the mortality rate of foxes there would need to be some very serious questions asked about the project as some might consider it "throwing money down a drain" -microchip Monday -dead fox Thursday.

That may seem very negative but it is the fact that foxes in just Bristol die at an alarming rate thanks to cars. That makes the idea of microchipping not even a starter.

The best that we can do is monitor foxes (even with many fox feeders being obstructive and refusing to help -even when foxes are injured or seriously ill and need trapping to take them to vets) with help from friendly fox watchers and record fox deaths and continue to monitor how they are dying and the health of the population in general.