Whereas foxes have had very little concentrated efforts to study them and their history as well as causes of death (The Red Paper 2022 has balanced the former out while official suppression of the Fox Deaths Project report would have balanced out the other) most research is carried out in Europe. Until the 1980s the only real health issue with foxes was, supposedly, mange.
In Care For The Wild (1982 pp 121-122) written by John Hughes who served as a warden for the RSPCA Wildlife Field Unit and W. J. Jordan "with his long experience as a veterinary surgeon, formerly as Chief Wildlife Officer of the RSPCA it is stated that foxes can fall victim to canine diseases but there is little hope of treating these. A mention is made of rabies in Europe (much has been done to eradicate this since that time). When it comes to mange:
"Mange can be treated with one of the special insecticide dressings provided the disease does not cover too much of the animal's body. for the dressing is poisonous. It must be applied at regular intervals, over five to seven days, as one treatment is not enough."
Sadly, this out of date information is something certain rescues still refer to; one states that if a fox is judged to have 30% mange coverage (who decides what 30% coverage is?) then it must be put down. The aforementioned rescue has told many people that killing the fox (euthanasia is for severely injured foxes with no chance of recovery or which are dying) is the only option as "the mange gets into the bones" and also "As soon as they get mange it is a slow death sentence as it will have started damaging all the internal organs". This is obviously so ill informed that really the body spouting it should have the term "wildlife rescue" removed. If any rescue tells you any of this walk away and look elsewhere for help -The Fox Rescuers, The Fox Project of Fox Angels Foundation.
Mange is easily treatable especially if caught early on. Almost 600 foxes that would have been killed by the rescue mentioned above were treated successfully and have gone on to have litters and their litters have litters!
When it comes to UK studies a lot of money was wasted on looking at fox DNA. It reveal that a lot of foxes had EU fox DNA which, considering they were imported by the thousands each year for hunting up to 1914 that is no big surprise.
Particular studies have looked at helminths/parasites -as with the Fox Deaths Project but the majority of work is carried on outside the UK. An interesting paper shows what can be found if research is properly funded and that will not happen in the UK with 75% of the population gone and no interest in conservation.
In the paper Parasite Fauna Diversity in Red Foxes (Vulpes vulpes)from Natural and Anthropized Ecosystems of the Republic of Moldova by Oleg Chihai, Ștefan Rusu, Nina Talambuță, Victoria Nistreanu, Alina Larion, Anatol Savin and Nicolae Naforniță they give an abstract of their study which includes a breakdown parasites found.
Abstract: The study of the diversity of the parasite fauna in the investigated foxes showed a high level of infestation (100%).
The taxonomy of parasitofauna in foxes includes 12 parasitic invasions
(Isospora canis – 14,3%,
Alaria alata – 51,0%,
Mesocestoides lineatus – 21,7%,
Taeniidae spp – 27,0%,
Syphacia obvelata – 17,0%,
Strongyloides stercoralis – 13,3%,
Toxocara canis – 59,0%,
Toxascaris leonina – 65,5%,
Ancylostoma caninum – 8,7%,
Trichuris vulpis – 26,1%,
pilaria hepatica – 35,0%),
which belong to 5 classes, 10 families, 11 genera and about 12 species.
The share of species from the Sporozoa class is 8.3%, from the Trematoda class - 8.3%, from the Cestoda class - 16.7%, from the Secernentea class - 41.7% and from the Adenophorea class - 25.0%. Analyzing the parasitic species on epidemiological criterion, it was found that 10 species (83.3%) with large spread have zoonotic impact (A. alata, M. lineatus, Taenia spp., S. obvelata, S. ratti, T. canis, T. leonina, A. can- inum, C. hepatica, T. vulpis) with a major risk to public health, and the identifed invasions (100%) can parasitize domestic animals, as well as game fauna.
Parasites from domestic animals can also, likewise, pass on to foxes. With many papers there is always the question of who or which body funded the work as pro-hunting groups have been found to semi fund some projects. However, in this case I cannot find evidence of this. It would be interesting to know how a fox population count was carried out since to many one fox looks the same as another especially when it comes to fast moving ones!
I am still looking at possible research into wolf and Jackal as well as coyote parasites although I am guessing results might be similar but to a lesser invasive degree.
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