Fox Deaths Registered up to October of 2022, 2023 and 2024

 

Some sobering numbers but first let me set the record straight on a totally false 'fact' still being repeated.

"The fox population is in decline because mange is killing them off"

Utter rubbishy.  The biggest killer of foxes in the UK are humans. Men and women who go out every night to shoot and kill whatever they can find and they call it 'sport'.  It was 'sport' that wiped out so many British species in the 1860s.  Shooting, however is second to motor vehicles. People speeding along roads, especially in towns and cities, at night and hitting foxes, badgers, pet cats, deer and a whole bag full of others. Thousands of foxes are killed on the roads every year and do you know how many people have stopped and reported hitting a fox with their car in Bristol in the last two years?

Two.

Mange is something that is always there (introduced by the hunts through importing and releasing foxes from Europe) but in Bristol the work of Sarah Mills (The Bristol Fox Lady) has helped to reduce the various outbreaks and has even managed to have people who have foxes visiting their gardens help. This type of effort nationally would help the population but not stop the decline as the fox, like the badger and hedgehog, are heading for extinction by the 2030s.

In 2022 I asked people to report any dead foxes in the City of Bristol and it was a slow and time consuming effort as the responses were  (and it is still uttered today); "Never bothered reporting -what interest are dead foxes or badgers??"   People will even walk past dead pet cats and not report them. I found out a long time ago that "England is a nation of animal lovers" is one of the faked "national facts".  But that is for a post some other time.

Bearing in mind that people tend to not report dead foxes the following are the figures for 2022, 2023 and 2024 all up to 30th October.

2022    42

2023    229

2024    217

It should be also remembered that statistically we know only a certain percentage of people make a report. Based on what we know it is likely that even the 2023 figure was far from an actual accurate figure.  We estimated that, perhaps, 300 would be nearer for up to October 2023.  We can only go by actual reported dead foxes, though.

One area of Bristol had a notorious stretch of road and every week there would be dead badgers, foxes, deer and other animals. Then...two weeks straight no reports from the stretch of road,  It seems that all the vegetation on the roadside had been cut back so animals could see (from their level) that they were not crossing a field but a road and drivers could see the wildlife.  These photographs taken by Sarah Mills show how well t5he verge was cleared.

On one occasion in 2023 the police were called out to a deer found at the side of this road. It was one of the largest deer they had seen and it was clear that the driver of the car that hit it had been travelling at speed. The police estimated that from the state of the deer and distance from the road the car involved would have "at least" received £200-300 worth of damage. How can you strike a deer while driving at speed and just carry on and no doubt swearing about the damage to your car?  

The verge was likely cut back due to the risk to humans.

I have previously covered the estimated number of wildlife killed each year on roads https://foxwildcatwolverineproject.blogspot.com/2024/01/how-many-animals-killed-on-uk-roads.html  Wildlife crossing road signs and even wildlife under and over passes have all been slapped down because, you know, making them will cost money and drivers might get annoyed at delays. 

The "animal loving public" prefer to see thousands of dead animals on roads than delay their journeys by 20-30 minutes -"Wildlife should not be on the road!" as more than one driver has stated.  

"Under the Road Traffic Act 1988, you legally have to report the hitting of a horse, cattle, ass, mule, sheep, pig, goat or dog. Currently, the Road Traffic Act 1988 doesn’t apply to deer, cats, badgers or foxes."

A "nation of animal lovers"

If The Gums Are Dayglo Yellow -That Needs Checking

Although the Bristol fox necropsies (post mortems) have ended it does not mean that we are no longer interested in what is killing foxes.  

Today, Sarah Mills responded to a phone call about a fox collapsed on a street, "peddling" its legs and barking. The fox was collected and taken to a nearby vet practice where it was euthanised -there was absolutely nothing that could be done for it other than to relieve suffering. It is a sad decision to do this and it is never made lightly.

One examination of the fox while she took photographs for the record, Sarah found that the fox was extremely jaundiced -she had noticed this while collecting it but it is not possible to fully examine a live animal when the priority is to relieve suffering.

When I first saw the above photograph of the fox's gums I had to enlarge. Out of the foxes we have submitted with jaundice I believe that these are the yellowest gums -almost dayglo.

The jaundice was clearly visible on the ears.

Again, possibly the yellowest eyes so far seen. 

If you work for a rescue or wildlife centre and you find any foxes looking like this then do not just bury it or put it in a bag for disposal. Please look for the nearest Animal Plant Health Agency post mortem centre to you and ask to submit it. The post mortems are free if poisons or disease is suspected. With the current work going on the APHA and Wildlife Network for Disease Surveillance would be very interested in similar cases.

To keep telling people that this is all canine hepatitis is beyond silly. Our necropsies have not revealed one case of ICH and not a single case of the b"rampant in UK foxes" adenovirus. Claims like that are not backed up by facts as the Bristol project has shown.

We need to keep an open mind, not give out conclusions before even basic testing is carried out and above all else take fox health seriously as foxes are a key species in the environment and what happens to them is advanced warning to us about things going wrong.

You can check for APHA PM centres here http://apha.defra.gov.uk/postcode/pme.asp

UPDATE based on the gum colouration and other factors we have been asked to submit this fox for PM

Does Ireland Have A Thriving Fox Population -and why?

Published on RTE online https://www.rte.ie/news/connacht/2024/1008/1474244-foxes/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGJv9ZleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHfPVfXEWUG4BA5GeBJa-zZdKJ7uKSjYSFBQRx3QKrCpUJ_F3rIRCN2A2sg_aem_boFEsApqQyeauZrmmi_36Q  this item asks the public to do something no animal welfare group in the UK would: ask for fox sightings and locations.

Mt advice is to always check whether your local authority, in the UK or Eire "practices fox control" because although fox control is impossible (get rid of one fox and others will move in) it is also anti-environmental.  Every town and city has a rodent problem from mice to rats and rodenticides used by authorities or the public are dangerous to hedgehogs, owls, hawks as well as domestic pets.

Each year pets and wildlife die horribly because of rodenticides.  

The best rodent disposal is carried out by foxes -as in the United States where foxes as well as coyotes do the same work and ditto jackals in other parts of the world. One vixen was observed having killed and returned to her cubs in a den with six rats in an half hour period. A public establishment in Bristol keep their fox safe as it is the best pest controller they have ever had and its success is counted by the rat tails (the only part foxes do not eat) found every week -in one weekend 16.

We have found care homes and even an hospice will not use rodenticides as they have a fox and since the foxes have been around -no more rats.

If you see rats in your neighbourhood you need to realise that the fox-human relationship is symbiotic. The old fox types like the Cur fox was attracted to human habitation because of the disposal of food waste which attracted rodents and so foxes had a good place to hunt as well as additional food.  In countries with jackals the same thing applies and  in the 19th century it was noted how British military expeditions in India were followed by jackals but once the expedition was over -no more jackals because no more waste food.  The same applies to coyotes which in some parts of the United States you will see more often than urban foxes.

During the 19th century, through hunting, the island of Ireland saw its fox population drop to the point that English hunts sent "gift foxes".  For that reason, foxes in Northern Ireland and Eire would have European Vulpes vulpes DNA; it is not because this fox was the original fox type in the UK and Ireland but because they were exported from parts of Europe since the 1700s when Old fox types declined in number.  It was also the poor transportation and housing of foxes before being sent on that introduced mange to the UK (unknown in the UK prior to the 19th century.

Foxes are NO THREAT to domestic pets so get that idea out of your head. In the countryside rabbits are top of the prey list while in towns the rat is number one!

In the UK the decline in fox numbers since the 1990s (likely well before that) is an indicator that something is wrong in the ecological balance which is something we are looking into. If you have a healthy and thriving fox population then you know there are plenty of prey around and foxes will keep those in check.

As long as the locations, etc, are not used for 'pest control' then the final results of the survey should be interesting.

The survey is particularly focused on the largest cities across the island - Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Derry and Waterford

Researchers at the University of Galway are appealing to the public to register sightings of urban red foxes.

The survey is particularly focused on the largest cities across the island - Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Derry and Waterford.

The increased sightings of Irish wildlife in cities is attributed to the availability of food and shelter.

Red foxes in particular have been known to thrive in built up areas because of increased food opportunities, such as discarded food, insects and fruit.

They also hunt other urban animals such as rats, mice, and pigeons

Speaking on RTÉ's News at One programme, Dr Colin Lawton of University of Galway's School of Natural Sciences said the resources which urban foxes are availing of has caused for their behaviour to differ from rural foxes.

"A recent study has shown that foxes seem to be getting more domesticated in urban areas, they're actually looking cuter, they look more like dogs," Dr Lawton said.

"Their muzzles are getting shorter, and they've got a more domed head, and that's because they've become more appealing to people and more likely to get treats in gardens" he added.

The aim of the survey is to create a distribution map of foxes and to better understand humans’ relationships with the animals.

"A lot of people are delighted to see them, because we don’t see much wildlife in our urban areas, but then others may have problems.

"They can be messy, they can make a lot of noise, and so we’re looking to make sure that we can manage the human-wildlife conflict, without harming the foxes in any way".

Members of the public can record their sightings using the Urban Fox Survey page, hosted by the National Biodiversity Data Centre.

Why Are People Terrified of Truth But Embrace Dogma? (I include Publishers)

 "I would not buy a copy of your book without reading what is in it and knowing what the conclusions are!" 

That was the response on one wildlife group when I referred to findings in The Red Paper 2022 Canids - I wasn't even trying to sell the book but responding to someone who asked why I had stated that the red foxes we see today are not the original British (England, Scotland, Wales and island of Ireland) foxes of which there were three variations.

Firstly, if you go to the effort of pulling together what is now 48 years of research on foxes and present that work with every source and reference then back in the old days when we read books there would have been interest. Being asked to give all of the main points and conclusions is not something anyone does since it then makes buying the book in question pointless. There are so many modern examples from the 1980s on of quotes and facts from old sources that are neither accurate quotes nor 'facts' because copy and pasting from other inaccurate sources is standard now. 

An example is the Wild Dog of Ennerdale or "Girt Dog of Ennerdale" which people (dubious fantasy promoters and grifters) are still saying might have been an early exotic escapee -a thylacine or tiger or even unknown British cat of some type. They all quote the original source of the account but what is reported shows that, even if they have a copy, they have never read it. There is a whole chapter on British wild dogs in my book which no one else has ever presented because it would mean weeks and months of endless archival research.

It took years for me to identify which type of fox had existed on Hong Kong before hunting made it extinct; something naturalists and museums there had been unable to do.

Every single source found in my research is in the book. Peer review is not possible unless someone checks every source and is aware of the three old variants. Zoological and natural history papers of the time are quoted as are people who were the top naturalists and specialists of their day.

All of this information I need to present in a casual post to someone who probably had no interest in reading anyway.

Secondly, how do you explain photographs? When I first started out I was young and believed every bit of dogma pushed my way by older naturalists.  The Mountain fox was the equivalent of the beluga whale sized trout that the weekend fisherman had slip away from him. Tall tales and that was it as no naturalist had ever seen a mountain fox.  Well, officially, the type had become extinct in the 1860s so only naturalists from the time had seen and written about them.

I found an illustration of a Mountain fox in a book from the 1800s. I chuckled as I knew how bad such artistic renditions could be -and we would never know what the fox actually really looked like. A few years ago we learnt that the fox in question was up for auction and the photographs showed that the artist had been amazingly accurate!  And then the Extinct Fox and Wild cat Museum got the actual taxidermy (which took me days to recover from the shock of).  How large was the Mountain fox?  An adult coyote taxidermy was propped up next to it and the fox made it look dwarfish. The photographs tell the story better than a few words.

How do you explain that it took a lot of time to understand the names used for these Old foxes? Greyhound fox, mountain fox, Mastiff fox, Hill fox or even Cur fox?  It took a lot of studying and work so that we now know what each type looked like and there is taxidermy to prove it (rare but if we do not have the actual specimen we have the photographs).

It is now believed that Western Europe also had an Old fox type with the red fox migrating from the east following human migrations.

Explain all of that in a quick post.

The problem is dogma. By the 1900s the Old foxes and wild cats were gone so what ever was about was "it". Teacher tells student Old foxes are a myth and red foxes are native. Student becomes teacher and passes along that information and so it goes ad infinitum. And book publishers have a vested interest in keeping that dogma going. Authors who are raised on red foxes write books and articles on the subject and earn money and publishers are not going to admit they got it all messed up. "The red fox in medieval Britain" is nonsense since they were not imported into the UK to replace rapidly becoming extinct foxes until the  late 16th or 17th centuries.

All of this can be applied to wild cats. The 1860s was a time when hunting made species endangered or extinct. Deer, red squirrels and many others were imported from Europe to keep 'sport' alive.  Why does UK species DNA match EU species DNA?  Because that is where they were brought over from.  The native Old foxes and Old wild cats became extinct -Scottish naturalists recorded that Scottish wild cats had become extinct around that time at a meeting in 1897.

Yes, we do have specimens of what would have been some of the last of the  Old type wild cats.

Publishers would not touch my books through fear possibly (you can work out why yourselves).  Noted publications in the UK will not even review the books -again, work it out for yourselves.  The late David Bellamy called the original (2010) Red Paper "explosive". I think that the most tel;ling comment came from a naturalist who told me that my books were "heretical"!

I have spent a few hundred pounds sending copies to various experts and bodies and the response?  Nothing. They will not even discuss the books.  One gentleman in a Swiss museum that I contacted re. Old types in Europe declared himself an expert on red foxes for 30 years and that the museum collection of fox taxidermy was in the room behind him but that he had no intention of going and looking at them over a wild theory. He refused a copy of the book.

We cannot simply sweep the true history of wildlife out the door because we need to present a truthful picture of what once existed but was wiped out through human activity.  We need to learn the lessons rather than dodge and lie; it seems when it comes to humans making species extinct in other parts of the world it is important but what was done in the UK....keep it locked away.

Peer review by -?

Post Mortems Show Biggest Risks To Foxes

 

I have been called an "environmental conservationist" (?) as well as a wildlife archivist and conservationist. Oddly, I was once told that I appeared more interested in fox and wildlife welfare.  How do you study an animal, attempt to conserve it and educate on it and not be interested in its welfare?

Anyway, I have just gotten up to summarising Fox post mortem report no. 57 and this is what I can tell everyone based on those findings.

Stick to chicken legs/wings and fruit if you are feeding a fox.
Never EVER put out food past its use by date. People keep saying foxes "can eat anything -their stomachs are like cement mixers". They ARE NOT and what is being put out for foxes is killing them.
We have had a fox who died from compacted plastic in the stomach. The pathologist had no idea what the plastic was until an assistant told him it was the plastic supermarkets use to wrap meat in. Make sure anything put out is not wrapped in anything.
The best thing you can do to help foxes is try to target worm them. Every single fox examined had worm burden but one thing I see over and over is "verminous pneumonia" (lung worm) that debilitated or killed a fox. Something like Panacur covers all worms including heart and lung worm. I doubt that there is a fox in Bristol that does not have a worm burden and one cub died from the biggest worm burden the pathologist had ever seen.

Food -there is plenty in the form of rats, mice and fruit as well as the usual stuff so if it came to the crunch foxes can do without feeding BUT worming is a way we can help so please consider that.,