Urban foxes

My husband has several friends who are pest controllers and they are shooting a lot of foxes. Of course it is like painting the Forth Bridge - clear out one lot of foxes and the vacancy will soon be filled by another family. I know we have foxes round here because I see them if I'm out late in the evening and, of course, we hear the vixens screaming. They've never been any trouble though, not even a dustbin knocked over. We all feed the squirrels and I always feel guilty when my cats kill one. A friend of mine thought her very elderly cat had been killed by a fox but came to the conclusion that it had bumped into a fox in the garden and died from shock.

When my daughter lived in London she lived in a second floor walk-up ex-council property with open walkways. A fox regularly made it up the stairs to sh*t in the planter by her front door. She knows it was a fox because on several evenings when she was walking along the walkway to her front door the fox rushed past her going in the opposite direction.

Accepted, nightowl

Of course Lilygran. I posted in a hurry, should be dong other things. I just don't think a lot of creatures that we refer to as pests come into that category. We'll have to agree to differ on this one. My views on animals were there from early childhood, I'm not going to change them now

I think a number of forms of life, not threatening my food source, are a real threat to me in other ways. Mosquitoes? Streptococcus?

Absent it's on the Archers. She's trying to protect badgers in a dairy farming area.

I don't see them as a pest Lilygran. I don't even know what a pest is. I can accept that some life forms might be seen as pests if they threaten your food source. To me foxes are just another form of animal life that has every right to live. I'll even help them if I can.

I'm confused, nightowl. Foxes are a pest. Why stop them from dying young? Or packing up and moving out?

I don't feed foxes because I think they're cute I feed them because I know they have a hard time surviving. There seems to be evidence that in many areas their numbers are actually declining. They certainly don't live very long.

What or who is the Linda Snell brigade?

People in urban areas think foxes (especially cubs) are very cute and deliberately feed them. They feed grey squirrels as well. They don't deliberately feed rats but that's one result of putting food out. I'm with gracesmum. I like the idea of the urban hunt.

#memories

No! Babies in prams under apple trees are a thing of the past now.

Oh but the smell of foxes! Eeuuurrgh!

Would you leave the darling GC out in its pram nowadays in London? My SIL got very wobbly when I put their infants under the lilac tree to nap(daytime only) in my sight and hearing in the NE

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/07/stop-hounding-britain-urban-foxes

An old article, but an interesting one. There is a lot of hype about urban foxes.

I feed them in winter and will continue to do so.

It's polar bears that would worry me. Or even grizzlies.

I like it Stansgran - you often have a wonderfully surreal "take" on threads!
Your suggestion might also solve the problem of some of the lowlifes that blight our streets and street corners at night who make it hard for people to go home without being molested/mugged or worse!

I have the hawks also buzzards and jays, deer are common but haven't seen any rabbits. Did have squirrels until him next door shot them all.

We get badgers too. They're making quite a mess of the garden.

We live on the edge of a "green lung"" and have squirrels foxes badgers and rabbits,but here they seem to keep each other in check. We also have on and off deer and pheasants . Some seasons we are over run with rabbits then the fox get plump and glossy but hardly a rabbit last year and the fox looking lean and hungry. There is also a semi resident sparrow hawk . Perhaps introducing a few predators might be the answer in London .open the zoo at night.?

Some people feed them! (foxes) son -in-law had to have a quiet word with neighbour.

Join the Linda Snell brigade!

We get a badger. Digs a hole in the same place each visit. Thinks it's thinking of moving in permanently.

Oh dear - late onset dyslexia strikes again - I read that as a "misguided rabbi"

Seriously - if the fox population iin the countryside is increasing as a consequence of measures used which are less effective than fox-hunting used to be , there will be more (hungry) foxes chasing after the same amount of food. So some of them will gravitate into suburban then urban areas.. The urban fox problem is further aggravated by their absence of fear of humans and the possibility of meals on wheels - or at least meals on pavements and dare I suggest a level of misguided liberal squeamishness by the authorities about killing them?
There will be animal lovers up in arms at such action, but do they not see what the alternative is likely to be?