The total reported number of dead foxes in the City of Bristol for 2023 stands at 257
I should point out that the total number of fox deaths listed herein are not all that died in 2023. There are numerous reports of “a dead fox in Bedminster not sure what road” as well as “I was driving into Bristol and saw a dead fox -not sure of the location” and when attempting to narrow locations down the usual response is silence or “I have no idea but I’ve reported it”.
The other problem are the “I’ve a dead fox in my garden and the council can’t collect it until after the weekend. It needs moving” and there is no location given once I make it clear that we record dead foxes and only certain fox deaths are of interest to the ongoing study and even all of this is politely explained I usually get the “waste of time. Thought you were interested in dead foxes” which is where things end. People have this idea that if they have to wait overnight or until after the weekend for the council street team to to collect a dead fox then we sort it out for them. We are not a waste disposal service. Now I ask what the address is and then explain the situation and even then asking for a photograph of the said dead fox (a lot can be told by these) will be met with silence.
A problem faced is that Bristol City Council refuses flatly to offer any cooperation on dead foxes and even ones that their waste management stored for us to collect on the day ‘vanished’ with the excuse “Well, anyone can turn up and remove bags” -including, it seems , bags with tags marked “Do Not Remove -Possible Evidence”. Annoyingly more than once I have read on small Bristol groups post stating: “Report it to the Council for removal. They are fast” and these are groups where I have posted regularly on both the Fox Deaths Project and the Fox and Badger Death Registers. When I read “We’ve had three die in our street this month -council came out to collect” then those are three foxes we might have been able to say “RTA” (hit by car) or something we need to look into. Lost for good.
Another problem is people who will offer up the same excuses of “I was driving my children to school” or “I was walking the dog” when it comes to checking whether what they have seen is a dead fox or badger. Three times I have seen a “dead dog” reported only to later have someone later confirm that the dead animal was a fox.
What has been another major problem is the fact that very few of the local wildlife groups cooperate. There are one or two individuals who will let me know if they have seen a post about a dead fox but the main cooperation (reporting of dead foxes) comes from lost and found pet groups. Despite five years of constantly updating Bristol wildlife groups the situation has not improved.
Looking at the death list it is clear that certain areas are hot spots for fox (and badger) deaths and the same applies to otters. Kingswood and Downend are so regular when it comes to fox and badger deaths that I often wonder how there are any left in the area. The same applies to otters in one area. Speed bumps the council object to putting in place as they get “moaned at by motorists” and the idea of installing a wildlife underpass is also unthinkable because of “the money involved in this and traffic problems caused”. So protected species such as badgers and otters will continue to die. Foxes that are declining in numbers are also going to continue dying.
If one or two or even three foxes die on a specific road over a period of 2-3 weeks then there are the claims that “someone is poisoning the foxes”. One reason the Fox Deaths Project was set up in Bristol was to see whether poisoning was a cause of fox death. We have found one -and that was secondary poisoning from eating a poisoned rat which is a far more common way for carnivores and birds of prey (and pets) to die than most realise. Loss of dead foxes due to them not being reported to us denies evidence of causality of death but so far “The Bristol fox poisoner(s)” has proven a myth.
I do not include any dead animal reported unless I have a location - even just a street name – because “Bedminster” or just “Bishopston” does not tell us much; was it near a road, what was its physical condition looking like before death? And “can you confirm it was a fox? Often resulted in no responses or “I have no idea. I assumed it was a fox at the side of the road” (no one as far as I know keeps tabs on the number of RTA pet cats in the City). It is why I always ask if a photo can be taken of the animal reported in situ -again, a photograph can tell us a lot about how a fox died or whether someone moved it out of the road. A photograph also ensures that no hoaxes get listed and it is sad to state that we do get those but after decades I usually detect hoaxes quickly. The fact that the hoax reports can only come via local wildlife groups is disturbing since the general public in Bristol is probably unaware of our work.
All of the possible but unconfirmed fox death reports added to the confirmed ones would push the number up past 300. Reporting is better now and whereas for 2022 only 50 fox deaths were recorded we have improved things though to a depressing level.
Fox deaths will continue to be recorded in 2024 and I am sure that some 2023 ones will be added lately -Christmas and New Year are points where no one really cares about reporting fox, badger or otter deaths as there are far more ‘important’ things to get on with.
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The sad thing about recording badger deaths in 2023 is that we recorded 16 for 2022 and 53 for this year shows that reporting has improved. However, as with foxes there are posts from people on Bristol wildlife groups, where I post often about the Badger and Fox death registers. That “I see dead badgers regularly along that road” or “It’s quite common to see dead badgers on that point in the road”. These people can rarely recall dates or where exactly these regular deaths are seen and for that reason the ‘reports’ cannot be included but if they were then we would be looking at 70+ badger deaths for 2023.
At least two ‘badger deaths’ turned out to be (1) a muntjac deer and (2) a fox -confirmed by people who checked later. Another problem is that very often people will post that “I had no idea anyone was interested in dead foxes and badgers -I see them all the time while driving from one end of Bristol to the other” or even “Why bother reporting them when they are dead? It’s so common to see them on the roadside”.
Losses due to people reporting dead badgers to the council street clean team is a problem. The Health and Safety Executive will not allow post mortems on dead badgers over “concerns regarding bovine TB” therefore it is possible that deaths due to disease/illness or illegal killing are going unrecorded. If it were possible to launch a project on dead badgers as we have for foxes then we might learn a lot -0even if only about the overall health of the species locally.
At the moment any badger death is assigned a tag of “RTA” (meaning it was struck by a car) although we do know that in one case a badger fell from a cliff top in bad weather. All we are able
to do so far is simply list deaths and locations and here we do see the same roads accounting for fox and badger deaths -Downend and Kingswood being the two most prominent.
As a “protected” species little is done in the way of death prevention. Wildlife underpasses would certainly cut back on deaths but authorities are not willing to even contemplate such a measure. That so many die at a time when the national population is under threat is both angering and sad.
Terry Hooper-Scharf
1st January 2024
Canid Study (f 1976)
Bristol Badger Group (f 1995)
A Pdf for each Register is available to those involved in research.
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