Manuka Honey To Treat Wildlife

 Animal welfare is always a top priority and with so little help available to treat wildlife in situ alternatives need to be looked at. One common substance that people keep referring to is Manuka Honey.  I have used bread poultices in the past on pets but wildlife is different. 

While Manuka honey can be beneficial in treating wounds in animals, including wildlife, it's generally not recommended to feed it directly as a poultice or wound treatment without proper guidance. Manuka honey, known for its antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, can be used in veterinary medicine, but applying it directly to a wound requires careful consideration and may not be suitable for all wildlife species or situation. 

It is  not a simple solution:

Wildlife Welfare:

Directly applying honey to a wound on a wild animal can be risky. The animal might be stressed or fearful, making it difficult to administer the treatment safely. There's also a chance of the animal ingesting the honey, which could be problematic depending on the species and the amount.

Proper Wound Care:

Treating a wound on wildlife often requires specialized knowledge and tools. A veterinarian can assess the wound, clean it properly, and determine the best course of action, which may or may not include Manuka honey.

Specific Needs of Wildlife:

Different wildlife species have different needs and may react differently to treatments. Manuka honey might not be the ideal choice for all wounds or all species.

Potential for Harm:

Applying honey incorrectly or using the wrong type can worsen the wound or cause other complications.

Alternatives:

Other wound care options, such as cleaning with a sterile solution, using protective dressings, and seeking professional veterinary help, are often more appropriate for wildlife.

When to Consider Manuka Honey in Wildlife:

Seeking Professional Guidance:

If a wildlife veterinarian determines Manuka honey is appropriate for a specific case, they can provide the correct application method and dosage.

Under Supervision:

If a veterinarian approves the use of Manuka honey, it should be applied under their supervision to ensure proper hygiene and avoid any complications.

While Manuka honey can be beneficial in wound healing, it's not a universal solution for wildlife. Consulting with a veterinarian is crucial to determine the best course of treatment for a specific case, and applying Manuka honey directly to wounds should only be done under professional guidance.

Human Laziness and How IT Kills and injures Foxes and other wildlife

 We know cars kill foxes whether adults or young. One thing that never gets mentioned are the two other ways they are killed and basically through people being lazy.  

We have had cubs drown in paddling pools in garden and not even with fresh water in but old water that no one is going to sit in anyway. Young cubs are curious and climb up the side of a paddling pool then fall in and in a panic exhaust themselves trying to get out until all energy is gone and they drown.

Always the same from the householders: "Oh, we're devastated. We came out and the little thing was floating in the water!"  Well, the cub would have been alive if they had not had the attitude of "Can't be bothered emptying it just yet".  A child or even someone who was drunk and walked into the garden then fell in and drowned. There are enough cases on record for that.  

If you are not using a paddling pool DO NOT leave it overnight or for days: EMPTY when not in use.  I won't show images of any drown cubs here.

The other item in the garden, school playing field etc is netting. Until the 1990s it was standard practice for caretakers or groundsmen to put nets up at night every night. Laziness has taken over since that time. Badgers, deer and particularly foxes have all fallen victims to netting left5 down: "we were devastated to find the poor animal hanging dead in the nets" and where the animal has not died it requires a wildlife rescuer to get to work. DO NOT totally cut free an animal and let them run off and, yes, idiots told not to have done that in the past.

Animals can get constriction injuries that need to be checked and wildlife care given -paws and legs can be lost although the UK is not great on wildlife care so a leg injury often results in the animal (otherwise perfectly healthy) being put down. If a rescuer gets to it in time the animals can be saved but if your grounds person was too lazy to be bothered putting the nets up then please do not get upset and in a panic because parents and kids will soon be turning up and will see it. I think parents should see how poorly their child's school is maintained.

Then we have the public. Buy nets with all sorts of games but after five minutes it gets boring so guess what? It gets chucked by the side of a shed, a fence, bushes and then they are "devastated" as their kids went out to play and there was a dead fox cub strangled in its efforts to try to escape.

In the United States wildlife faces the same problem and even coyotes get stuck in netting. It is all because people are just too bloody lazy and do not give a damn about anything other than not having to tidy away.

In Bristol in the last week we have had three (reported) net cases that Sarah Mills (the Bristol Fox Lady) had to respond to.

Cub 001 how this one did not strangle itself is a miracle. It was freed and taken to Vale Wildlife Hospital in Gloucestershire, the nearest rescue.   It did have constriction so it was in the balance but it survived.

Images and video clips (c)2025 Sarah Mills

Images and video clips (c)2025 Sarah Mills

Cub 002 is from today (28th May) it was so terrified and trapped that it even started biting through its toes.  Its ultimate fate is undetermined.

Images and video clips (c)2025 Sarah Mills

Images and video clips (c)2025 Sarah Mills

Cub 003 was, again, lucky not to be choked to death and there would have been nothing the vixen could have done. This one survived but it was very close.

Images and video clips (c)2025 Sarah Mills

In every drowning or netting case it is always the same "we are devastated" which, of course, does absolutely no good to the drowned or choked cub or its mother that probably went frantic trying to save it until it was too late.  The householder or school is "devastated" -well excuse me if I do not give a damn about how they feel. Their laziness WAS the reason the cub was injured and died or drowned.

You can help by signing the current petition on sportsground netting and you can also make bloody sure that if you have netting loose in the garden or a paddling pool full of water that the make sure they are safe overnight.

Require by law all sports netting to be tied up when not in use

We want the government to make it a legal requirement that all sports netting on sports fields, in schools and domestic gardens is tied up to prevent ensnaring wildlife and pets. Make it a fineable offence for the net owners not to do so.

 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722303?fbclid=IwY2xjawKj1p1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETE0RjR6YmVETng3UDFaRE1wAR4KZ4480oaw0vWLkyBRlROcZFA6qGVZFV7YmQ19NwnzT4-Camm2JUWwbX7wQA_aem_00b85762frlaejCMauAKlw

Celebrities from TV LOVE to kill wildlife. Fact.

 Bit of an oldish story but he is praised by the Countryside Alliance (pro hunt group) as a great sportsman. He has Kirsty's support.

Just one of the very mentally unstable people who go out every night to kill deer, foxes, badgers and anything else that delights them. We can add Alexander Armstrong, Alan Titchmarsh, Martin Clunes (loves cheering on fox hounds) and a number of others who work at BBC and ITV -which is why we rarely hear about anti hunt stuff.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384468/From-hunting-property-bargains-killing-wildlife--outcry-TV-homes-guru-guns-deer.html

Keir Starmer, Steve Reed, DEFRA, Natural England and the "Green" Party

  Sent out this afternoon along with a link to the relevant post. Time for being nice went long ago:

@DefraGovUK @NaturalEngland @Keir_Starmer @SteveReedMP @TheGreenParty @carla_denyer and @AdrianRamsay @ZackPolanski @NatalieBen All of you sit on the fence and say "no money for it" while UK species are heading for extinction. You are a disgrace. https://terryhoopernaturalist.blogspot.com/2025/05/2030s-there-will-be-uk-wildlife-mass.html

Fox Health -Mange and Parasites

 

Above: (c)2025 respective copyright owner

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%,

Trichuris muris – 4,4%, Ca-

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.

The Labour and Green Parties No Concerns Over Imminent Extinctions in UK

 

When I wrote the post 2030s: There Will Be A UK Wildlife Mass Extinction Event

https://terryhoopernaturalist.blogspot.com/2025/05/2030s-there-will-be-uk-wildlife-mass.html  I was not joking or using some sort of shock tactic.  

Since the 1990s I have been warning that the UK fox population has been declining to a dangerous level. It was conservatively estimated that we had lost 60% of the fox population, Apparently those gathering the data were unaware of or did not think that 'sport shooters' were a thing.  It seems there was disbelief that men and women would go out every night just to kill animals and think of themselves as 'sportsmen'.

 Based on what these 'people' claim and show in photos on their "private groups"  (proud like true psychopaths posing with their valiant kills) the estimate for the percentage of the fox population we have lost needs to be updated. This also takes into account "thug crimes" where catapults, crossbows and even poisons are used to fatally injure foxes. Also, there seems little knowledge of the number of fox cub and adult deaths from disease because no one, apart from the British Fox and Wild Canids Study (1976), has been looking into that in some detail. Local authorities also hide the fact that rodenticides and pest controllers they employ kill a large number of foxes -I write "hide" but the truth is no one asks and really those people in charge don't care.

My estimate based on all of this is that we have lost 70-75% of the UK fox population.

 Although it was declining since the early 1900s no one noticed or bothered as hunts gave (provably even according to supporters) false numbers for foxes killed -that was always the justification for killing more. Basically, not even denial but full knowledge that like their forefathers in the early 19th century they were hunting foxes to extinction -with no more importing of "fresh blood" from Europe a population could only go on so long and with the pointless killing of cubs by throwing them, to hounds out of sadistic pleasure and the hounds a "taste" how could a population continue?

If a fox survives to being three years old it is considered lucky and the ones that live to be five or six years of age are true miracles.

Now we have new legislation coming in thanks to the Labour Party, Keir Starmer and Steve Reed that means developers can destroy fox dens and badger setts as well as a lot more of the UK environment. A corrupt government voted in on its written policies to defend and protect UK wildlife and environment will be noted in natural history books as the Extinction Party.  They have already guaranteed that badgers are becoming extinct and the (in writing) aim of clearing badgers from certain parts of England is being achieved.

A Tory government would be of no use as it does not hide its pro hunting stance and neither does the Reform Party. The Liberal Democrats are pro farmers and that includes the cull to keep the farmers on side.

The Green Party is ineffective and absolutely nothing like the German Green Party. As discussed on this blog before, the Greens are pro development and pro countryside/farming.  We see hundreds of animals killed each year on the roads in and around Bristol and the Green run Bristol City Council policy is "We don't have the money  and are not concerned" -asking the Green Party national HQ if they can influence the Green Council (and three emails later) a very short response that they have forwarded the matter to....the Green Bristol City Council.

Greed and lying as well as destruction of wildlife and the environment is standard in UK politics so that means when the badgers, foxes and hedgehogs as well as all the other species go extinct in the 2030s they will cheer -more land for development!

Protected species has absolutely no standing in the UK.

Badger protections under threat!

 

Badger protections under threat!

It's been one step forward and two steps back for badger conservation. Despite warnings from MPs, Badger Trust and other conservationists, a controversial change to the Protection of Badgers Act has been approved, introducing vague rules that could allow developers to kill badgers. Opposition MPs pushed back, but the vote passed 9–6.

This is a knock for the protection of badgers but we're not giving up!

Read the full story and get involved to help us protect badgers at this crucial time https://buff.ly/haHR3O2