There is a plan underway to gather fox hair samples from around the UK. Now I know enough people are reading these posts so I know there are fox watchers/fox feeders out there.
I am not asking for people to pluck hairs from a live fox. Later on I will give guidelines on how you can gather hair without the fox even knowing. However, the work to analyse the hairs will obnly work if people from around the UK join in.
Of course. if you come across a dead fox (adult or cub) it is sad but if you can pluck some hair (2-3 strands) and put it in a plastic baggie with date/time and location of where you took the samples that will also help.
I will probably announce the details around June time but if you do get any hairs before then please put them into a plastic baggie or even a sealed envelope and send them along in the meantime. Contact me on Face Book by Personal Messenger or email for the address: blacktowercg@hotmail.com
In Jose R. Castello's Canids of the Worldone phrase is repeated on many of the fox taxonomy notes when the statement that it (fox type) is believed to be a sub-species of Vulpes vulpes: "The validity of this and other subspecies has not been confirmed by genetic analysis".
The Russian fox is noted as an old type and description/history seems fairly clear. However, the most information available on "Russian foxes" are pages of links to taming and domestication of foxes as pets. Considering the past of the former USSR that foxes were not studied in the wild is not surprising.
The Cyprus red fox has the same advisory and certain authors have claimed the importation of foxes at least twice from various sources.
It is always when a canid has been driven to extinction (like other species) that science then shifts its lardy ass and asks "Didn't anyone study them? Shameful" and too late.
We have two main urban fox populations in the UK (that we know of) -Bristol and London. Bristol having once been a major trade port it is possible that there were markets for selling foxes there rather than have foxes land at London, be transported to a seller and then transported around the UK. Commercially, it makes more sense in 18th and 19th century infrastructures (if they can be called that) to import into major ports then be sold on by sellers in those towns.
However, we have foxes in Bristol and London and these should (again our knowledge is very limited) represent a cross section of imported foxes. Both cities also have a lot of fox feeders/watchers and it might be possible to recruit them to gather at least hair samples from "their" foxes for analysis. As fgar as I am aware this would be the first such attempted large study and could lead on to other associated studies.
When it comes to the importance such a study would have on British natural history it would be major. Results could be used and built on by researchers in other countries or even islands where foxes exist and there is a question mark as to their origins.
Persuading the fox feeders and watchers to help out will need a lot of diplomacy and persuasion but can be achieved.
The difficulty comes in finding a university or lab that is willing to donate spare time to the study of the hair samples because there is no funding for such projects however ground breaking they may be.
This is from SomersetLive in May, 2020. I wish fox feeders would read this and take note. A fox requires around 100 cal//kg per day to keep it going. Last week I noted one feeder dishing out 6 chicken legs, some fried bacon, raw eggs and even chips "as a treat". That lot came to several hundreds of cals. I see photographs of perfectly slim, healthy foxes that feeders describe as "looking hungry". There are foxes across the UK that know the exact time of day to turn up at a back door for their free meals -breakfast and supper.
There are people, and it seems to be a big social media thing, who feed foxes in the garden and bit by bit entice them to eat from their hands or go further by enticing the fox to come into their klitchens and even living rooms. Now, the fox is no threat but the humamns are. They are habituating wild canids to humans which ios not a good thing for foxes. And injured fox being given meds -such as mange treatment- I see no problem with but I then read "Foxy had five young to feed -more mouths for me to feed too!" the cubs arethen taught by the vixen where to go for food.
Several times I have read of people doing this for years then: "We have to move. I hope foxy will be fed by the neighbours" or "I'm going away for a few months and I'm worried what thefpox I am feeding will do" or "I am on a months holiday soon and I have no idea how the fox will get food". The typical response is: "Ask a neighbour to feed them for you" which is fluffy minded at best.
Foxes eat rats, mice as well as other things and that is how it fits into the ecology of the UK; it is a wild canid and they have survived for many thousands of years without 1-2 daily feeds from humans. Would you have a dog and go on holiday or move house and leave it alone with no food? No, but it is a domestic canid and relies onhumans. A fox is a wild canid and will, hopefully, go back tpo its usual ways once human feeding stops.
It does not matter whetheryou have lived in the housefor 10 years and been happily feeding foxes and the neighbour has been there less than a year; if he asks you to stop feeding foxes because they are urinating on his door (and fox urine wreaks) then you had better stop because "tell him to **** off. You were there first!" does not cut it. Hecan report the "fox problem" to the local authority and pest controllers will be more than happy to kill it/them because you habituated them to humans when they should run from humans.
You move and so one day a neighbour screams when she finds a pair of foxes walking into her kitchen and house. She contacts the council. Pest controllers. Bang. Bang. Foxes dead BECAUSE of human habituation.
I suggested that fruit and veg be put in with all the chicken, ham, sausages and eggs. It did not go down well.
There are legitimate reasons to give foxes some food but I am seeing too many overweight foxes and that is going to seriously impact on their health and the future health of the species.
are wild canids -leave them as wild canids and buy yourself a dog
The SomersetLive post:
Restaurants are closed, as are takeaways, and rubbish collections seem to now be picking up.
For an urban fox, it's become harder to source some of its regular food supplies.
And this can often mean that they are braving food sources from further afield and encroaching on human territory.
In Somerset especially, foxes face a love-hate relationship with humans - some people get pleasure from hunting them, while others will do all they can to try and protect them.
So what should you do if you begin to notice a hungry fox or two in your neck of the woods, and are they really the pests they're made out to be?
To answer this question, Somerset Live spoke with 'The Fox Man', a non-for-profit organisation based up north in Greater Manchester, but whose Facebook presence and quick response time for any fox lover looking for advice, has stretched across the country.
Urban foxes can find food among household waste and leftovers(Image: Getty Images)
The goal of 'The Fox Man' is to rescue foxes who may be sick or injured and provide advice and support to anyone who may have a sick or injured fox visiting them at home.
Recently they have treated a number of foxes for mange - a common skin disease caused by mites - and have also taken in a number of foxes with injuries to limbs and even teeth. They currently have a small collection of rescued fox cubs, too.
The Fox Man also tries to dispel some of the negative views of foxes by members of the public.
The team give educational talks for schools and other groups and, though they are based in the North West, they will be there to help anyone across the country with a fox query.
What are your thoughts on foxes? Have you seen more of them while in lockdown and would you feed them? Get in touch by emailing ellie.kendall@reachplc.com
So when it comes to feeding a fox, what should we consider?
Foxes are usually fearful of humans
The Fox Man says: "The main issue with regards to feeding foxes is them becoming dependent on you for food.
"If for whatever reason you have to stop – i.e. you move house, or go on holiday, the fox which has until then been used to being fed daily, suddenly has its regular food supply cut short and can therefore struggle.
"It may then need to search further afield to find food, which can sometimes result in them encroaching on other foxes territories, leading to territorial battles in worst cases.
"The best advice is to give them small amounts of food such as peanuts or a small helping of dog food."
Are foxes really as bad as some people believe them to be?
From killing pets, to chasing humans, some people really have a thing against foxes - and that's even before we take into account the amount of people who still venture out on fox hunting trips in this modern day and age, despite the Hunting Act 2004, which made it illegal to hunt wild animals with a pack of dogs.
Those in charge of their own farm, keeping chicken coops and the like, may also be wary of foxes eating all their chickens and even the eggs they lay.
It's worth remembering, though, that foxes aren't animals that kill for fun but rather for food.
They will often bury a lot of the food they acquire, for another day.
The Fox Man says: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
"You either love them or hate them, and to some people they are beautiful animals who can provide hours of entertainment as they play in your garden, and to others they are considered a pest as they can dig up gardens, kill unprotected pets and make some annoying noises (particularly in the early hours, during mating season).
"Our goal here is to do what we can for the sick and injured ones, and to advise those who do have an issue with foxes on ways to solve their problems humanely.
"Lethal forms of 'fox control' are completely pointless with foxes being territorial, so the removal of one leads to another taking its place - so we always recommend ways to deter foxes from gardens/ensure small pets are protected properly, and then there will be no issue long term."
The Fox Man added: "There's a lot of misunderstanding and fear mongering in the press with regards to foxes, and we are always amazed when someone says they are 'too scared to go into their garden' if they have a fox there, dealing with these animals close up on a daily basis.
"They want nothing more than to avoid contact with humans and will run off if you even start to approach them.
"We need to get very hands on with some of the foxes that come in, and they are completely non-aggressive, just fearful.
"Unfortunately, some people who read certain newspapers with a pro-hunt agenda believe foxes are the 'big bad wolf' that will eat your children the first chance they get, due to dubious stories about 'fox attacks'.
"This is not typical of foxes at all and they just want to avoid humans.
"Unfortunately, in this day and age we are encroaching more and more on natural environments that would have once been home to an array of wildlife including foxes, who are now forced to adapt to urban environments and cope with humans - who are the cause of approximately 80% of fox deaths, with the bulk of those being road traffic collisions.
"Love them or hate them, there is no denying that foxes are truly beautiful animals and we are lucky to have such a characteristic wild animal frequenting our gardens."
I mention the Scottish Wild Cat Haven and its enclosure but what is more important is what their stance is regarding the shooting, snaring and even poisoning by landowners and farmers of feral cats to "keep the wildcat pure".
Between 1977-2013 (and on and off since) I was a wildlife consultant to UK police forces abd regularly spoke to land owners, game keepers and farmers from all around the UK but what I heard back from some in Scotland concerned me. I was being told that feral and wild cats were seen as "vermin" or "pests" (same thing). People were quite open in telling me that both were shot on site or that they were snared.
Firstly, I was in the position that I could do nothing much. I reported back to PWO (Police Wildlife Officers) who could only note what I was saying because, without solid evidence, it was "your word against theirs" and they were not going to say to police that they used poison. Shooting and snaring on private land is also not illegal. I came across several incidents over the years in which animals or birds that were supposedly protected by law, were killed. "Oh, that's on private land" I was told. End of story.
Just as these people told me about the number of red squirrels they had killed or how they had "disposed of" reintroduced birds of prey so the police kept informing me that private land was private land.
You might assume that with complaints of so many wild rabbits running around a wild or feral (feral is just a former domestic cat living wild) cat would be welcome -they kill and eat rabbits...and rats and mice. Despite all of the laws the practice that has gone on for centuries continues -the 'fun' and 'joy' of killing a specific animal -including buzzards and hawks that kill the rabbits, mice and rats.
We know that Di Francis in her "ill judged" Kellas cat quest -to prove that it was a formerly unknown British cat species- paid for any such cat killed. Her incompetence at breeding these cats led to their suffering and death until she was "advised" (you could not tell her anything) that feeding a "natural diet" like they would get in the wild might help. It did. However, when I spoke to her by phone in the late 1990s I was told that she had up to 20 dead Kellas cats in her freezers -all evidence of the new species. We know that the "Kellas" cat is a feral-wildcat hybrid -that is evolution not a reason to carry on killing a species.
Read the books by the great and good naturalists and zoologists and they explain all of this (turning a convenient blind eye when they should be very vocal); if a species is under stress, hunted and they are few in number then they will breed with the most convenient and compatible species. A female wild cat will mate with a feral if there are no male wild cats and vice versa. Again: that is evolution.
We like to think that our knowledge of wild cats in the UK is complete and you will read:
Now confined to the Scottish highlands, wild cats disappeared from southern England in the 16th century, with the last one recorded in northern England being shot in 1849. ... The Wildlife and Countryside Act gives strict legal protection to wild cats and their dens.
But the truth is that wild cats in England and even the Welsh border area were still known in the 1930s and these were not releases but still existing at that time but under threat -even well klnown and respected zoologiosts wrote about this.
In 2019 it was reported that there were plans to reintroduce the wild cat (Felis silvestris) back into England. It cannot be possible, if any research had been done what-so-ever by those involved, that they were unaware that this had already happened. As I noted in my Wildcats and Ferals paper (2000) while looking at large non native cat reports I was contacted by a couple who saw a pair of large cats in their garden (location confidential) and as they described what they saw I was puzzled. Eventually it was established that what they had observed were two F silvestris.
Then another report from a different location. I then heard from a forester on the English-Welsh borders. Suddenly, other reports were beginning to make sense. I contacted the Wildcat Survival Trust and was told that they knew a group had been releasing pairs of wild cats around England to try to reintroduce them. No idea who the group was but this was all taking place throughout the 1990s. I welcome an official reintroduction but only if protection is strictly enforced including on private property. Tagging and tracking may help to a degree.
As it happens I was wondering why I had not heard more of these cats pover recent years though people have reported "BIG tabby cats with striped/ringed tails" and thanks to Hayley de Ronde of Black Foxes UK I heard of a recent sighting in Northern England (location confidential) and have been in contact with the observer who is keeping his eyes open from now on.
Rather as the non stop killing of foxes and their cubs -snaring, poisoning, shooting and live cubs thrown to fox hounds to "give them a taste of their prey" it is barbaric and totally out of keeping with the natural balance of the eco system. Prey -rabbits, mice, rats etc require Predators -foxes, badgers (another protected species killed at whim officially) and wild/feral cats. The Prey-Predator balance is no longer in sync.
Protect and help existing populations of Felis silvestris is welcome but not at the cost of killing every feral cat seen which are filling a niche. We also need to make sure that protecyted species are protected without the "its private land" gety-out-of-gaol clause. And let's not forget that many pets are also injured and killed because of these actions.
This was posted earlier by the Scottish Wildcat Haven -thanks to Hayley de Ronde for forwarding.
FINLAY’S REHABILITATION ENCLOSURE COMPLETED
We are delighted to announce that our wildcat rehabilitation enclosure is now complete and Finlay is now happily living in it, in preparation for a return to the wild.
A lot of thought went into this before we started, as this facility will last at least 25 years and will not just help Finlay, but any future cats rescued. We therefore wanted to get it right.
It has a number of crucial features:
Contains natural vegetation to allow natural behaviours.
Is permeable to birds and small mammals which can freely move through it, allowing Finlay an opportunity to develop crucial hunting skills.
Contains multiple dens sites as wildcats use more than one den in the wild.
Has different areas of cover and zones to give the opportunity for maximum behavioural enrichment.
Built using a galvanised tubular steel system which allows flexibility. It can be added to or split up, if we get multiple animals at short notice.
The fencing is dug 2 feet into the ground to prevent cats digging out and animals like foxes and badgers digging in.
Is in a remote location to prevent exposure to people.
It is not on public view
It is away from roads and so prevents habituation to vehicles.
It has been a huge amount of work and we have had tractors, diggers, and up to 6 people working on site at any one time, but we are delighted with the end result and hope you are too.
Most importantly, Finlay seems to approve too and is thoroughly enjoying himself. He is now living in the enclosure full time, which is a crucial step on his journey back to the wild. We will put up some recent pictures and footage of him in the coming days, so keep watching.
Here are some picture of the construction process and finished enclosure on the news section of our website:
