Avian Influenza Virus in Foxes

As if to emphasise what I have been trying to warn people about, and one reason why we carry out the post mortems on dead foxes, it is confirmed that Avian Influenza Virus (AIV) is now being isolated from some foxes.  So the University involved is reviewing its health and safety routine regarding fox PMs re zoonotic risks (as it has re. Badger Pms and Bovine TB).  Some post mortems may still be possible with some mitigations

Dead birds are a free meal to foxes and it was only a matter of time before this happened; the risk is bird to fox to humans.

The other crossing over we have been waiting to find (thankfully not yet) is covid in foxes. Again, the risk is fox to human through close contact.

This is serious advice: feed any fox at a distance and DO NOT hand feed or try to coax a fox into your home. This is not a joke. If you use a bowl to feed a fox (or badger) clean it out every day with a disinfectant. If you feed on one spot regularly -do not. Move where you place food nightly.

Foxes are best fed and watched from a distance, as are badgers. If you are a feeder you now have a serious responsibility to make changes to how you interact with foxes and badgers. Keeping AIV isolated to wildlife and not crossing over to humans is extremely important. If AIV spreads throughout UK fox populations that could lead to a cull. We do NOT want that.

Keep any AIV in foxes isolated and do not help to spread it.

Terry Hooper-Scharf

British Fox Study

 

Pumpkins Kill Hedgehogs -Please Dispose of carefully

 

Badgers Are NOT "Garden Pets" for Social Media Likes!

 

 I am fully aware of Badger feeders just as I am aware of fox feeders.

I have seen photographs and video clips of people opening doors to entice badgers to take food from their hands. You can be as careful as you want but as with a fox being too slow will lose you fingers.

Although badgers and foxes tend to live in a "you don't bother me then I wont bother you" way with each other and domestic cats there can be problems.

Just as foxes are WILD canids so badgers are WILD mustelids and they are NOT "garden pets". With badgers and foxes you must -if you put supplementary food out every few days- leave it away from the house: bringing badgers and foxes to the doorstep is a challenge to house cats which means that you create conflict. Cats will take any opportunity to attack foxes and might not fare so well against a badger (though cats seem to display a sense that foxes they can attack but not badgers).

Social Media "Likes" is not what wildlife are there for. Photograph or video them from a distance but not only might your habituating them to humans lead to problems with neighbours (badgers are protected but I've been involved in a number of cases where neighbours have threatened to "remove" them.

Habituating foxes and badgers to humans makes it far easier to snare or kill them. There are a lot of sick people out there who love doing this for 'fun' and profit selling to taxidermists.

Personally., if it were withing my power I would make it illegal to feed foxes and badgers during summertime when all of their natural prey are out there in abundance and when they kill rats and mice there is less need for poisons to be used. Winter feeding when things are rough, okay, but summer time they do not need feeding up.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE consider how you interact with badgers.

A Serious Rant

Everyone -everyone-  is aware of the cost of living crisis. People had to resort to food banks, which are under stress. Families are struggling to feed themselves and sacrifices are made to make sure their children are fed.  Some stores are putting food out at low price so you will find chicken drumsticks and wings in bags or trays cheap.

This is what, and you will need to excuse me here, pisses me off. I have seen on Face Book fox groups people posting photos and of discounted chicken and what shops they found it in -"get it while it's cheap!". Every bag or tray is a  meal for humans who really need to look for the discounted foods.

During a hard winter giving a fox a little extra  "in case" is not that objectionable. Feeding a fox or foxes 2-3 times a day is wrong. Having the foxes queue up in your garden like trained pets at a specific time each day is wrong.These are NOT pets. They are wild canids and they are being trained to ignore their natural instincts. There are millions of rats, mice and wild rabbits (rabbits even in suburbs), beetles and other insects that foxes include in their natural diet. I have seen one photo after another on Face Book 'wildlife' groups of the pet garden rat...which will become rats and how are you going to get rid of them? 

Left-overs from your meal is what dogs and cats used to get and its perfectly acceptable for a scavenging fox.

People are being stupid. Plain and simple.

Time and again I see people posting to fox groups how they have fed 'their' foxes once or twice a day for several years but they have to move for employment or just moving home. "Ask the neighbours to feed them!" is the best answer. Yeah, spend your money feeding wild animals that the idiot next door has semi-domesticated then dumped. Far more likely that a fox or foxes congregating outside the neighbours' back door will be reported as nuisances. Local authorities then call in the pest controllers.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

And those foxes encouraged by food into kitchens, living rooms are going to go into other peoples' houses and people who are not keen on foxes. 

BANG! BANG! BANG!

One fox...two or three. Doesn't matter it's all an earner for pest control.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

I have had experience in a rabies zone when I was a kid in Germany and later. The aftermath is not pleasant. You get bitten by a rabid animal the treatment is not pleasant. Previously, foxes were mainly in rural areas and if there was a rabies outbreak less problems for those in towns.

We now have a lot of urban foxes and foxes encouraged to come up to people, be hand fed  and to interact with pet dogs and cats. They come into contact with badgers. Muntjac deer. Hedgehogs. From an isolated and easy to deal with outbreak we are faced with an out of control epidemic. In the 1970s even a false alarm in England resulted in hundreds of mammals and many birds being "culled" -dead animals once removed are no longer a threat to spread the virus.

A rabid fox will bite anything including humans.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

In some countries it is illegal to feed foxes. I some times think that might be a good idea in the UK. Stop the hunts killing foxes but overfeed foxes, cause health problems in foxes so that there are immunity problems -some of these I have seen with the Fox Death Project.

Human food is for humans. Feeders baulk at paying for a one off mange treatment that works but will spend £40-60 a month buying chicken, eggs and worse for wild animals. hey, why pay when there are suckers who'll send you free homeopathic treatment for free? It can be effective in early cases but the best med is the one you can buy. 

I see images and videos of foxes that are overweight -this is not a "healthy" look. Foxes should be slim and can only eat as much as a domestic cat. The number of eggs and rotten chicken gardeners dig up each year shows how overfed foxes are. "It came back three times -poor thing must have been hungry" No. It was taking the food and caching it all. It was left to rot because that fox is fed everyday eats some and buries the rest.

Feeders are domesticating foxes and encouraging large groups when they should be dispersing. Wildlife is wildlife and not garden pets.

I have spent 50 years now studying foxes and I have seen how people have lightly fed in bad weather or when actually treating wounds and injuries. The foxes were always slim and keen to hunt out rodents.  Now we have people feeding 2-3 times daily, dropping homeopathic drops on them when they "think" they have mange (usually when foxes start losing their winter coats). I am seeing fat foxes that ignore their instincts and raise their young to depend on humans for food. It has always been a symbiotic relationship but now some humans are trying to tame foxes and that, one way or another, may lead to very dire circumstances ...for the fox.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE step back. Look at how you are feeding and treating the foxes. They are ignoring their natural food for processed food that is not good.

THINK

Deer Monitoring and Badger Killings

 Deer Monitoring

We are currently looking at cases of emaciated roe and muntjac deer. They have died quickly and the concern that this might -MIGHT- be CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease) which, as far as we are aware was not in the UK.

Get in touch if you have seen such deer.

This may not be carnivore in topic but as part of the food chain (even as RTA) and how it will affect the environment it is important to monitor.

BADGERS

There is currently a badger cull ongoing in Buckinghamshire despite lack of evidence that they have bovine TB and no cases of cattle TB.

The UK National Carnivore Advisory is totally against these culls and the evidence shows that legally required biohazard precautions are being ignored.

Farmers and Badgers

It has been noted that some farmers are illegally killing badgers and dumping them by the roadside so that to casual observers it looks as though the badger was killed by a car.

Police appear to be sitting on their hands and local police not willing to challenge farmers and others involved.

THAT is how a "protected species" is treated in the UK.

Sorted

  After a lot of thinking I have come to a decision about my archives and books.

I arranged today (to make double sure) that when I croak my online store is deleted. Let's face it the books are not selling due to the current state of illiteracy so the only ones who would make money from any sales are the printer and the print on demand firm and the bank will only filch money for monthly charges. 

 Since my family has shown absolutely no interest in my work or books and constantly tell me I have wasted my whole life and money on "rubbish" like feck are they getting anything.

In fact when I previously stated that something needed to be sorted with my work (wildlife, UFOs etc and comics/publishing) after I croak it was made very clear that there is an incinerator in the back garden and that was no joke. It does take care of a lot, though.

In five decades I have been ripped off, my work used uncredited (by academics at that) and no one wanting to cooperate I see no reason why, like better researchers before me, I should allow the scumbag fakers to get a hold of my work and gain from it.

If I cannot make anything (even a basic living or to pay bills) from the books and research then no one else is and I am not having fighting over who gets my work. Mr Burner will take care of that and I will not be around to care.

Sorted.

The Red Paper Volume 1: Canids (2010)

 

Unfortunately there appears to be absolutely no interest in the new versions of The Red Paper (Canids or Felids) amongst fox people and certainly not from publishers who base what books they publish based on readings by their own writers who are, obviously, not going to push a book challenging what they are making money from.

The Red Paper (2010) has sold about 5 copies since 2010. The big problem is also that people are not buying from the secure online store but third party dealers and that means they are paying MORE for a copy (there is no such thing as "free post" its added to the book price).

Rather than get a decent profit after printers and print on demand company get their money (far more than I do) I 'earn' £2.75 for a major wildlife reference book that covers decades of work.

I have sent out more free copies than I have sold. £20.00 was cheap so now, as the new works look like they will never appear, I have put the price up to £25.00 and I am not even going to apologise for the price increase as no sales mean the research work has now ground to a halt and that's it.

So please do not ever tell me "it's a bit steep price wise".

https://www.lulu.com/account/projects/1dnpv7rv?page=1&pageSize=10