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.,