"It's ALL Leptospirosis!!" and The Outdated Veterinary Attitude To Injuries

 

Oh I wish I could just talk to wildlife rescues and vets and explain things to them but none seem to want to communicate (and I know why).  

More and more of these people since I posted the fox deaths results are seeing jaundice or another symptom and citing "leptospirosis" without carrying out any post mortem or testing and unless you do that you cannot say for sure. I am reminded of the vet who stated categorically that the fox presented "has lepto -you can smell it on its breath!" Post mortem and testing and...no leptospirosis.  

Jaundice in foxes can have a number of causes  -as we found and as I reported. To take jaundice and say "lepto" is rather like the six recorded vets (I think it was actually more than six) who outright stated "This fox has been poisoned. It has all the tell-tale signs" which then whipped up scare stories and claims of a "Bristol Fox Poisoner" but post mortems revealed deaths due to being hit by cars.   

Leptospirosis is found in UK foxes but whether it is a regional thing is hard to say. Personally, I think it is a national problem since foxes are excellent rodent controllers and rats carry lepto -a senior vet with years of experience when told that the large number of foxes died due to lepto responded "lepto -as in rats?" yep.

Environmental issues that may be adding to the problem need to be studied but no one in the UK is going to invest money or time on looking into that "it's rats and foxes -who cares?!" It also need to be looked at from the perspective of young foxes and how quickly they build up an immunity to lepto or babesia -an immunity carried by most foxes. So why are so many not immune?  Again, foxes are dying out and we have already lost an estimated 65-70% so why bother?  

The UK, as I have stated many times, is not interested in long term study or conservation of species and one government after another has done its utmost to make wildlife decline its goal.  No wildlife then no obstacle to developing countryside and green spaces. Labour is doing its best to see to that.  

Wildlife rescues and vets are obstinate in that they do not want to give figures for how many foxes they euthanise each year and for what causes (although some rescues will point fingers at others that mention doing so). I have found that in reports where there appears to be lepto or some other disease involved that wildlife vets respond to suggestions that PMs and testing are carried with "I'm the vet and I'll do that when I feel it necessary" while rescues either will not respond or simply state "we don't do post mortems" or even "We wouldn't want to put it through a post mortem". Really? It is dead and what you find out might help others. Wildlife vets and wildlife rescues are part of the problem and after more than ten (10) years of trying I have not found one that is cooperative.  

Similarly the vastly out-of-date attitude amongst vets and rescues that a fox with a facial injury cannot live so is euthanised whereas we have mounting evidence that treated in situ they do survive and thrive -as found with coyotes in the United States.  Equally out of date is "Leg injury requires euthanasia as "the fox cannot live in the wild".  

There are three legged foxes around the UK and in the US that have continued top thrive and live their lives. "a front leg means there is no chance it can survive" -again, outdated. We even have on this very blog a post about foxes with three legs in the wild and one with a front leg missing who had bred successfully.

https://foxwildcatwolverineproject.blogspot.com/2024/08/fox-leg-amputation-reason-to-kill.html

I hate saying it but it is fact: this is all dogma. A vixen who had a badly broken leg that was healing was reported to a rescue and the people reporting this were told that if it was caught it would be put down. Five other people claimed to have had the same response so when I tried reporting a fox with a limp as "a member of the public" I got the same response. So I said "But what if it's just a pulled muscle or sprain?" and was told "It's standing procedure; leg injury means it has to be put down".

Leg and facial injuries do NOT mean a fox needs killing. And jaundice does not mean a fox has lepto -it needs a post mortem and tests to be carried out.  We seem to make headway in field work and studies but then find everything going in an out-of-date circle of dogma.

And can I just add here a big THANK YOU to those vets who do help out and go beyond what they are required to do in helping sick and injured foxes in and around Bristol. Those are a credit to their profession.