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"