It was a question deserving a response:
"...I recall very few dead foxes apart from the one I reported yesterday but many more badgers, does this tell us our fox numbers are declining , similar to hedgehogs?"
This is my expanded response:
The fox population has been in decline for a very long time.
We had three distinct looking Old British foxes in the UK -adaptions to their habitats; the large mountain or greyhound fox, the Hill fox or mastiff fox which was large and muscular and the Common or cur fox that lived near human habitation. These were wiped out by hunting c 1860s after knowing for decades they were dying out. Possibly as far back as the 17th/16th century foxes were imported from Europe and by the 1800s these numbered 2000+ every year.
These New British (red) foxes were hunted until they were wiped out or near to it and then more were imported (and that's how we got mange in the UK).
There have been a few near extinctions of these New foxes because if a "hunting country" found that it had one fox with mange every fox was killed down to the cubs -just buy in more. Foxes were allowed to live in artificial culverts/dens until they knew the land and were fit and healthy and mange made for bad sport.
Cubbing involved letting the hounds kill more or less trapped cubs to get them ready for the hunt season and vixens and dog foxes were also killed. The horror stories I will not go into here.
Unfortunately the diminished brain capacity of hunt masters meant that they could not understand this; if you kill off a breeding pair -they cannot produce any young and if you kill the young there are no foxes growing up and breeding -everyone and everything was to blame but the hunts. They put that in writing, too.
There is enough anecdotal evidence to show that fox numbers were declining before World War 1 and the pro hunt propaganda is that this increased the fox population as there had been no 'fox control' (sport) but there was; with anyone who got the chance killing foxes and this showed because after the war many hunts found that it was hard to find foxes to hunt (so what happened to the uncontrolled breeding?).
Then in 1923 there was The Great Scarcity and foxes were hard to find but they still killed off any they could. and even captive breeding was not increasing numbers and World War 2 still saw hunting despite all you might read. Officers and lo0cal squires and the Old Boys Network meant some 'jollies' at weekends. And even after all the devastation of World War 2 the British Army had officers still wanting some 'fun'. The war over and Britain's officer class were keen to return to "recreational normality" in occupied West Germany by chasing foxes across the countryside but it was Winston Churchill, once again Tory prime minister, who spoiled their equestrian pursuits not being a fan of the fox hunt.
By the 1950s the foxes were declining more and evidence suggests that hunts were "topping up" their number of foxes killed to show that they were really doing a jolly good job of what they had started calling "pest control" decades before when the anti fox hunt movement had taken hold people had gotten to be less respectful to hunt masters band hunts -and prosecutions were carried out for damage and pets/live stock killed.
In the early 1950s even more foxes were dying off in the SE and possibly elsewhere and it was thought (introduced) myxomatosis killing off the foxes main food (rabbits) was to blame but that seems odd. foxes may have rabbit at the top of its menu but it also eats fruit and vegetables as well as insects and amphibians. To me there was more to this episode that "devastated" the fox population. However no one carried out post mortem examinations on foxes as they were, after all, "just foxes" and were this to start happening and be made public in 2024 I have no doubt there would be an investigation into what was killing foxes. In private diaries there may well be details of what was going on.
Still, hunts met up. Really. That was the answer to foxes dying off everywhere -kill more until nothing was left to hunt.
We know that foxes, successors to the cur fox, were in towns and cities in the 1800s as there was shelter as well as good food sources -human food waste and rats and mice. "That bloody cat has tipped the bin over again!" may have been heard a lot but that "odd looking ginger cat" was more likely a fox. "Foxes began to enter British towns circa the 1930s" shows a lack of research on the subject.
Foxes were doing better in urban environments despite all the dangers (until it was realised that "fox control" achieved nothing but a waste of money.
In the 1990s I was hearing that foxes were getting scarcer and in some areas had vanished. Night shooters who like to call themselves "pest control" show every rabbit and fox they saw because each made sure the landowner saw they had done their work and they got paid. In my previous work I had to speak to these people and the ones considering themselves "professional" were quite chatty. However, I pointed out that the fox kills and eats rabbits so numbers would be naturally controlled and got two types of response: "Farmer doesn't want either around" and "It's a job that pays well" and that was it. I did note that some o0f these people pointed out that fox numbers had decreased dramatically (they were "doing a good job") or that it was rare for them to see a fox.
We have 'sportsmen/women' who go out every night or week and shoot what ever they want and if they can get a nice number of dead foxes to spread out in front of them for the 'trophy' photo so much the better. They also shoot any pet cat or other animal that they get a crack at -and their pages are full of back-and-forth jokes about this. These people are uncontrolled and it is not a 'sport' but "psychopathy in action" and they are contributing to wildlife extinction -no one cares. who in their right mind wakes up on a sunny summer day and looks out then chats with mates about donning camo gear and taking their night-scope rifles out to hide and shoot a cat sized animal for 'fun' and then pose as though they just took on the Kraken single handed with just a piece of paper and killed it? Some of these groups brag that they are "teflon" and nothing sticks or complaints are "lost" "because we have boys in blue (off duty police) joining in".
The claim that foxes increased in number during covid is another lie. They were still killing foxes to such an extent that the fox is becoming less common in the countryside and roads are killing more.
Back in the early 2000s and ever since I have posted that fox numbers were declining drastically but no one was interested in "just foxes" and then, recently, the British Trust for Ornithology (who would never cooperate before) did their mammal survey and it was suggested foxes might need to be put on The Red List.
Badgers are still being killed to order for taxidermy and by farmers who throw the bodies on roads because anyone seeing a dead badger will think "Road kill". Road kill may account for 100,000 a year though I suspect lower now as the badger population has sunk below rock bottom. Private estates do what they like and no one is around to see what goes on. All of this on top of the unscientific cull being carried out that has likely killed an estimated 300,000 (and now they cannot find enough badgers to carry on more culling!)
The next great extinction for foxes is not that far off and for badgers who survived the centuries of melecide they are about to face their first.
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