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Wednesday 9 August 2017

"Rabbits and rats ~we shot all the foxes though!"

A few years back, while doing my police advisory work, I asked a golf course owner about local wildlife.  "Bloody rabbits and rats!" was the reply.  I asked "Don't you have any foxes?  Him: "Shot 'em!"  The post title comes from a similar idiot (I'm retired now so I can voice an opinion!)

You take the natural predator out of the food chain you get problems.


It's not just the hunters with hounds getting away with murder!
More often than not when the word fox is mentioned a great many thinks of the horrors of fox hunting with hounds.
When foxes have been in our care for treatment and when due to be released back into their town or city territories people will often ask that we keep them in our care as cub hunting has started or the fox hunting season is under way. However the majority of the town and city foxes thankfully never get chased and ripped to shreds by the hounds and often the real killers of the town and city foxes are overlooked.
Pest Control companies whilst lining their pockets probably account for the death of not hundreds but thousands of foxes each year. Pest Control companies have no close season so they will be killing in certain months, pregnant vixens, lactating vixens, and cubs. This happens on a daily basis. In certain situations, food will be left on a lawn and as the foxes come to eat a pest controller will be aiming his gun sights on their heads, their only crime is to be in a garden where they are not wanted. In other situations, a cage trap is set and when a fox is caught, it will be shot in the head.
Why is this happening? Some people don't like the idea of having foxes visit their gardens so Pest control companies are called in. Some schools and golf courses will have foxes on the land that they don't want there. Supermarkets, hotels restaurants, and businesses will call in pest control to kill the resident foxes.
This daily slaughter solves no real problems as when a family of foxes in a territory is wiped out all this does is create a vacant territory for another fox family to fill. The only winner in this is the Pest Controllers as their pockets will be lined again.
Foxes are not invading our gardens, it is us, invading theirs and with the constant need of more housing, supermarkets etc, we are forcing more foxes to live in an urban area, so for those getting away with murder, business will be booming!

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