Increase In Number of Unexplained Fox Deaths In Bristol

 Things may have been quiet on this blog but that is for a reason.

We have had even more suddent fox deaths in Bristol with the total since June at over 20. We know that in certain areas foxes have vanished and not been seen for a long period of time. I need to point out that there are a number of false rumours doing the rounds.

Firstly, as the head of Bristol City Council points out; there is no fox control practiced in the City as that would be pointless because you remove a fox then another moves in. The City has the largest urban fox population outside of London.

Bristol city Council are not trapping foxes then releasing them outside of the City. That is illogical and would be pointless. Bristol foxes are seen as being iconic.

Neither is Bristol University trapping foxes for some strange reason.

Think about the negative response and publicity if either body were doing that for whatever reason.

My concern is with the sudden collapse and death of foxes that appear to be healthy the previous day. Suspicion comes in when two foxes are found dean next to each other which does not indicate sickness but sudden death or placement after death. In one area of Bristol a healthy fox cub was seen on Thursday and the next morning was found dea and an in situ examination found signs of suspicious death. We are hoping that this fox will undergo post mortem examination though it is an upward struggle to get official post mortems carried out -we do not have funds for private pm.

This morning, Sunday, 22nd August, there was another call out over what was a healthy looking fox that suddenly collapsed and died in a garden. Again, there are suspicious signs and we are holding the body pending a PM approval.

Bristol City Council has been updated since June and it is hoped that they will help in some way so that suspicious as well as road traffic deaths of foxes can becatalogued.  Bristol City Council has raised its environmental and ecological profile in recent years so hopefully it will help as there is no way of telling whether other mammals, birds of prey who feed on dead rats for example, or even domestic pets may succumb to poisons used deliberately or accidentally.

Hopefully the PM Services in Bristol will be willingto continue to carry out post mortem examinations so that we can say definitely whether poison or disease is involved in these cases.

One of the biggest problems faced has been those reporting or not wanting to report a fox found dead under unusual circumstances.  

In some cases people will report the death and circumstances and then go silent and whether this is a "I did my bit and my involvement ends there" attitude I am unsure of but we actually need the exact location to examine the body and see whether it should be bagged for examination or not. "There was a fox dead just up the road from me. BS3." is pointless aswe need to find the carcass and BS3 is a big area. 

In other cases we hear of a fox found dead in a neighbour's garden and ask for the details...silence. I am also surethat many dead foxes are not reported which is why Bristol City Council and its Street Team which collects dead animals would be a huge assistance.

The RSPCA were contacted, however, there appears tobe no interest.  Avon & Somerset Police were informed of fox poisonings in one of the BS3 incidents and given my details. No check was made to see whether the carcasses were still in the place they were put to take away and no one from A&S Police contacted me and my two messages went unanswered. I was told thatthe incident was taken as "Intelligence" -basically "Information received and recorded" and that was an end to the matter.

The following map shows the areas involved (where carcasses were reported) and the number dead in each case.  As stated, if I included the cases where the circumstances sounded suspicious but no one was able to check the total number would be over 30 dead foxes under suspicious circumstances since I began recording in June.

This is an ongoing situation and we have asked anyone with CCTV or trail cams that see foxes to report any suspicious activity.

Again, I am not jumping up and down screaming "Susipious deaths -mass fox poisonings!" but I am trying to discover whether a disease or poisons are involved and things develop from there.

The one thing that I have found distasteful is the fact that Fox and wildlife rescues have sought local press coverage where foxes have been poisoned but will not cooperate to see how big a problem this is nationally. This is, to be honest, disgraceful behaviour.