Should You Keep Your Foxy Visitor A Secret?

 Photographer unknown

Hi, All.

There was a bit of a discussion about why people hide the fact that they have foxes visiting their gardens. Now those conversations tend to get a little heated so, as someone who has studied foxes and their history since 1977 and written a book on them I hope that I can make some points to clarify the situation.

Firstly, the only reason not to keep a location secret is if you sight a black fox (silver fox). These are purely bred to be domestic pets and they do not have the savvy of wild red foxes. They tend not to survive long because of this and fall prey to shooters and even snarers (I will refrain from saying what I think about them) -a couple months ago an escaped silver fox lost part of its front leg because of a snare. They do not survive long so if you do see one you should report it to Black Foxes UK who can try to catch and return it to its owners or rehouse it with a qualified wildlife or rescue group. The sooner a black fox can be rescued the better.

When it comes to wild foxes and even urban foxes there are still problems. From 1977-2013 I was an exotic wildlife advisor to UK police forces and this meant that I also had the opportunity to see what was going on around the country with wildlife. In the late 1990s in Birmingham there were gangs using dead cats as bait to catch foxes to stage "city hunts" and these took place in parks. As far as I am aware that stopped but there are people who snare and kill foxes for their fur and make a good bit of money from it. They have operated around towns and villages where they know foxes are active.

There are people who love to shoot anything and they feel like big game hunters when they can pose for a photo holding up a small fox they have shot.

There are people associated with hunts who spend the cubbing part of the year trying to find and snatch cubs. I had one snoop around my garden one night but foxes do not reside in my garden and I put the word out to people.

So there is no excuse not to report a silver fox (a photo will show if it is a pet or wild black fox) because reporting it will save its life £a few have also been killed by traffic because they do not have the fox savvy).

There is a need to keep foxes in your garden and its location quiet, though the fox may be visiting other gardens.

For my work I need to know where a fox was photographed as I need to put everything on a private map to chart distribution of certain fox types, etc. I work with no one else so if anyone contacts you and says they do -let me know and block them. What I ask is simple: date, how long foxes have been coming to your garden and location. I never ever ask "What street?" All I need to know is the area so "South London"/"Bournemouth" or even just the county so that it is a large area and does not say exactly where you are.

My work aims to try to get foxes recognised as important parts of the eco system and some form of protection and is NOT for any official body (especially not DEFRA).

Unless you know what is going on re foxes (and sadly badger baiting is still going on and I will not say what I think of that).

So when someone asks "Why keep the locations a secret?" there is a reason so please just explain to them so that they understand and PLEASE keep a cool head. The more people know the score the more we can work together to keep foxes safe.

Thank You