Suspicious Fox Deaths and Poisoning Investigation -Who Takes Official Resposibility? No One

 

For two months I have been trying to get DEFRA, the Animal & Plant Health Advisory, Wildlife Incident Investigation Service and recently the RSPCA to get involved in the collection of foxes/cubs that appear to be suspected deliberate poisoning victims and carry out post mortems to ascertain cause of death.

 

I have managed to get Bristol City Council interested in the deaths as it could be something they need to look into as a local authority but they do not carry out post mortems.  Bristol’s Street Cleaning Team which has the responsibility to pick up carcasses has even offered to transport dead foxes to a place within the city for post mortem. Unfortunately despite a fox being reported on Thursday, 16^th July no one has shown any interest in carrying out a post mortem examination.

 

At the moment, obviously, everyone is on the look out for potential virus outbreaks and foxes are a fairly good guide to the ecology and environmental issues in a local area but they are “just foxes”,

 

If you find a dead fox that is not obviously road kill –in your garden or woodland where there are no roads then please photograph the carcass in situ if you can and report it to me. If the animal is still alive even if it looks like it may not last long call the RSPCA but DO NOT state that it looks like it is almost dead as that would put it on a very low priority just explain that it looks in a bad way.  The RSPCA emergency number is:

 

0300 1234 999

 

In the recent BS3 cases it has been reported that the nearby stream is clean and contains aquatic life and also that cattle drink from it which shows there to be no contamination present.

 

Even if –if- accidental poisoning then there is a risk to domestic pets such as dogs and cats (dogs will grab and eat something without thinking about it) as well as badgers and hedgehogs especially if (deliberate) a substance is placed in sausage meat.

 

It is very important that, even if we cannot get an official body to carry out post mortems, these deaths are noted.  The Fox Study was set up in 1976 and is not funded so the possibility of transporting and paying for post mortems is not something it can undertake.

 

We know fox mortality is high due to mange or motor vehicles but mange these days tends to be treated by fox watchers/feeders so the mortality rate from this is significantly lower than it was in the 1990s. Cars we can do nothing about. What we do not know about is how many deaths occur from various natural causes –heart worm, etc.- because these are “just foxes” and no one has really undertaken a study of cubs or adults and causes of death (we do know about snaring, shooting for no reason and so on).  It may be that poisoning is a common practice; at least three generations of foxes in one London street have fallen victim to poisoning by “persons unknown” and recently fox cubs were poisoned in a Kent beauty spot where people walk their dogs and the sudden spate of healthy looking cub deaths in Bristol could be seen as quite suspicious.

 

I am only one person but without feedback the work is near impossible to do.  Other ways you can help is contact DEFRA and say you are concerned about suspicious fox deaths and no one looking into it. Contact your MP for the same thing. Unless someone further up the political chain decides to take things more seriously we are just going to see more unexplained fox deaths.

Thank You