What We Are Now Learning About Urban Foxes

 

Photo Alan Seymour

 There is unique information on urban fox behaviour that you do not read about in the books. This is because 99% of them are dedicated to the wild foxes and so repeat, cut n paste and repeat again old material.

Why? Because no one has seriously studied them. They are "just foxes".

Urban foxes and fox feeders are not mentioned in any of the text books up to or after 1990 that I have. The reason for this is simple. As wild canids foxes used to raid the old dustbins for scraps of food and this was also done by domestic cats and domestic dogs....not to mention the occasional tramp!

In 1976 there were no known fox feeders. Most people had no idea that a fox might be skulking around their gardens. Certainly they would not be deliberately buying food for foxes. Some might be putting food out for hedhehogs as they were (unlike up to the early 1900s when there was a bounty on killing them) "the gardeners helper" -taking care of slugs.

Even up until the 1980s I had never heard of fox feeders only of naturalists counting the number of rats or mice the foxes were estimated to kill each week (one farmer-naturalist did this by counting the number of rat tails he found; the only part foxes did not consume). Sadly, poisons put out for rats almost certainly killed many hedgehogs and foxes.

It appears that some time in the late 1980s, and certainly by 1994/1995, people had started to secretly feed foxes coming into their gardens. Often left overs but later on chicken, fruit and eggs. Some people even started keeping recordes of the foxes that visited them and can trace some foxes in 2021 being descendents of ones they began feeding in the 1990s.

In 1994/1995 a major outbreak of mange was estimated to have killed off so many foxes in Bristol (with the largest urban fox population outside of London) that only around 6% survived. It was this point in history that feeders wanted to stop the suffering and treatments were found for mange from homeopathic (for early stages) to more chemical meds for worse cases.

This meant that not only were foxes becoming habituated to humans -NOT a good idea since it makes them easy victims for the anti-fox people- but they were getting well fed -way about the 100 cal or so they need per day. It also meant that they were denning in gardens or close to the feeders. Cubs still die but their chances of survival are greater now than at any other time. Many foxes -from what I have learnt and can estimated (and it is a "guesstimate")- around 200+ per year in the UK are treated for mange and survive it and go on to create new generations.

It is VERY STRONGLY advised that feeders never coax wild foxes into their homes as this could be disasterous (for the fox) in the future.

My very first sighting of an urban fox in Bristol was as I was walking along Pennywell Road in Bristol at about 0630 hrs one summer morning. I heard the fast padding behind me and thought a dog had gotten loose. Then a fox rushed by looking as though it was running for its life and it was a largish dog fox. I turned to see a VERY determined looking big tom cat in pursuit of the fox. How it ended I have no idea but the fox was faster!

I wondered about fox-domestic cat interaction after that. I can say that from 1976-2021 the only genuine incident of a fox with a dead cat in its mouth I have heard of involved a cat killed by a car and it was in the gutter over 24 hours. Foxes eat road-kill, Its convenient food and some feeders do look for dead birds and other road-kill to feed foxes.

What many people see are not dead cats carried off by foxes but cubs being moved to another location -natural fox behaviour. There have been claims of "two foxes killed my cat and tore it to pieces" and "I have the fox killing my cat on CCTV" but questions pop up straight away such as WHY the person stood there watching their cat being attacked and ripped up by foxes? Or; WHERE is the cctv footage? Challenged, those making the posts either delete them or are not heard of again and their social media accounts are very basic or are connected to hunt groups.

Recently, someone posted that foxes were trying to kill his cats. Then it was his three legged cat. Then it became focussed on the three legged cat which froze as foxes approached (its front leg was ripped off by a dog years ago we were told). The only food in the garden were bird feeders. Did the poster have any video footage that could be studied so that we could see what was going on -was the interaction the foxes trying to play with the cat (plenty of videos of that) and it was misconstrued as "attempting to kill" the cat? If two adult foxes were brave enough to they would have. The poster just said he'd go somewhere else for advice and that was it. It seems almost fox hunt trolling especially when viewing the poster's social media (lack of) profile. Why did he not respond to advice or requests for him to video or submit any video footage he had so that we could offer more appropriate advice?

Foxes are well fed -rather like feral cats- if not deliberately then from stealing left out cat food or food left for hedgehogs. There is also plenty offootage of foxes who visit feeders killing rats and also mice. Foxes are well fed and to risk injury by attacking a cat makes no sense and there is really no evidence for such a thing and even scientific surveys have shown that a cat being killed by a fox is at the bottom of the list and really only included "in case" -all other threats tend to be disease or human related.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of urban foxes is that feeders do not see unusual fur patterns or colours just a fox. Feeders have inadvertently supplied so much information that it will take a while to sort through but totally over turns all previous data on British foxes.

Even reportsfrom Bristol have surprised me. Either "a fox is a fox" meant everyone just assumed that meant the"little red dog" and we have always had the variations noted or something major has happened to the British fox population from Scotland down to the very south of England.

Without funding the work is slow but it is oming together.

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

For The Foxes sake -The British Fox Study

 

I cannot say that I am surprised and nor can I say that I am not disappointed regarding the feedback for the study.

I know people want to protect the fox they watch/feed.  That is only natural since there are still many threats to them in the town and city including snares laid down for them and stealing cubs. However, the secrecy is creating a big problem,

 We know foxes are not a danger or threat to humans or pet cats. That is just pro hunt fake story telling to demonize the animal. We know that foxes are being poisoned in some areas –along with cats, hedgehogs and other animals. The secrecy is is allowing this type of thing to go on. If people are not educated about foxes and the dirty tricks being used by fur snarers and hunts then how can they act and help protect them? Someone sees two men hanging around near a neighbours home are more likely to think “possible house breakers” –their knowing a fox goes into that garden just does not fit into their equation because they wouldn’t be there for the fox, right? If they know of this danger they may tell you about those two men and that could be a fox saving warning.

There are hundreds of people out there around the UK who watch local foxes and some feed them. Most take photographs of them. Those photographs are valuable to a naturalist when looking at foxes in 2021. After months of scouring hundreds of photos from around the UK I have distinguished two prominent types of fox and fox morphology (colouration). Only ten (10) sets of photographs have come from fox watchers the rest I had to scour FB group photos then see which photos were taken where.

In fact, that scouring of photographs has achieved something (excluding the eye strain); it has helped me find what we might have considered at one time very rare fox colourations and some were eye-popping. Some were firsts for me after decades of work.

I started The Fox Study in 1977 and since that time, as with my work running the Exotic Animals Register (EAR), one thing has been paramount and that is the safety of the animal(s) in question. There was a motto: “By no word of mouth or deed to put any animal in danger” –when DEFRA insisted that I needed to turn over my exotics data to continue as part of the Partners Against Wild Life Crimes I refused and in the end they kicked me out. I could have stayed on the list of experts and made some money but not at the risk of exposing animals to DEFRAs “eradication protocol”.

At a time when I really needed money I was offered substantial amounts by two British newspapers who wanted to get maps and locations from what they called “Britain’s Big Cat Detective”. I refused. I knew why they wanted it and that was so they could pay a hunter to go out and “snag” a ‘big cat’. I decided poor was better.

Since 1977 I have never disclosed the name of any reportee wishing to remain anonymous, nor their location. The current look at foxes required this information:

1)      Photographs of the foxes watched/fed

2)      Name of the photographer (confidential but needed to prevent hoax/fraud)

3)      Location non-specific. In other words say, for Bristol the BS number so BS3, BS4 or BS16 etc which gives me a city area but no exact location (that is contained in the last three digits so I NEVER ask for those). In other areas just “London”, “Hove”, “Dartmouth”,”Glasgow” and so on because that gives me a geographic area NOT the exact location.

4)      How long have the foxes visited your garden and (if years) have you noticed any changes in their fur colour such as darkening, spotting or even black fur?

That is it. That information allows me to see whether foxes in different parts of the country have varied coat colours, whether they are smaller in one area compared to another. It helps us understand foxes in 2021 and that can ultimately help protect any at risk from hunters.

The Study is private and certainly not funded by any government department (such as DEFRA which hates me) or institution because, honestly, they do not care about foxes and fox studies do not bring in big donations for universities. This is NOT some type of tracking program in case rabies hits the UK. Firstly, it is very unlikely that rabies will hit the UK mainland and, secondly, no one has access to my data most of which is not kept on computer so hacking would be no good.

If you submit information you can either PM me on Face Book or email me at blacktowercg@hotmail.com and that’s it. Unless you have a very unusual or rare colour morph in which case I would like to learn more I do not pester with follow-ups. The four items listed above are all I am interested in.

There are foxes out there that have survived mange, serious injuries and more but are alive today because people have helped them and given them the chance to survive. Taking part in this study will hopefully do something towards protecting foxes and that is as important as the fight to protect badgers and the endangered hedgehog –both of whom feed alongside or near foxes with little or no conflict.

PLEASE if you can help –do.

Thank You

The Fox Study and NARF Implications

 

Above: The North American Red Fox

 If you have not read The Red Paper: Canids then it is very unlikely that you know the true story of British foxes. What we see today can easily be categorised as New Foxes as opposed to Old Fox types. The Red Paper: Canids was described as "explosive" and "totally rewrites the history of the fox in the UK".

The follow up will certainly carry on that tradition. Bit-by-bit I have pieced together that really should shake natural history in the UK to the core. 

We have irrefutable evidence that coyotes, wolves and jackals were released by British fox hunts.  This along with the importation of foxes from Europe as well as breeding foxes for future hunts is something it has taken a good few years to unearth and the information comes directly from the hunts.

I have clearly identified two fox types that seem typical of those found around the country. One of these is quite obviously of North American Red Fox (NARF) or Vulpes fulvus. 

In recent years wehave seen an extraordinary number of cases of escapes of Silver foxes as well as other exotic pet foxes. In fact the evidence leads to the suspicion that hunt groups are releasing NARF as something larger and more spectacular to hunt. It is also possible that the intention in some areas (such as Wales) is to breed something bigger with a "better fur" that can be caught in snares for the hiome grown British fur trade. The evidence speaks for itself.

Hayley de Ronde notes that in some areas the NARF has hybridised with or overtaken the number of British Red foxes.  This raises the concern that they will eventually replace the current British fox. She believes that the NARF were released following WW 2 and the eventual end of fur farming.

The Fox Study which I began in 1977 was able to make significant breakthroughs in tracing the history of UK foxes. The current work is designed to try to identify fox types in the UK and note how far and wide certain types are.

There are important points to make.

1. This work is not going to be completed quickly. There is absolutely no funding so things can take a while as everything comes out of my pocket.

2. This is a private research project aimed at giving us a better understanding of UK foxes. There is no governmental involvement, funding and there is no private access to core data given to any government department or agency working with one. People deal with me and no one else. 

3. From 1977-2013 I was an exotic animals advisor to UK police forces and it that time absolutely no witness identification or location data was ever given out. Confidential is confidential and protection of the animals involved is paramount.

4. What I ask for from people who want to help out is simple; 

(a)how long have the foxes been coming to your garden/area? 

(b)Have the foxes always looked the same -no stranger colourations to coats? 

(c)Basic location info.  In Bristol I simply ask for the post code area such as BS2 or BS 11. Outside of the City & County of Bristol I simply ask for the town, city or village. This is to help me see what types are in what areas.

(d) Photographs. People may love their foxy visitors but they take them to be "just foxes". With a photograph or series of photos I can see a lot more and that information helps greatly.

(e) If you have a name for the fox(es) that visit please note that with photos because if there is something unique spotted at least I can say which fox I'm talking about.  All photos/videoes are logged with the photographers Name and Town or area. I do not claim any rights to the photographs or video clips received so please do not be concerned that these will be used widely or without your permission.

From all of this I can hopefully produce something useful to people interested in foxes.

If you can help then please email me at:  blacktowercg@hotmail.com

If you see a black fox it may well be an escaped pet and those have been killed in road accidents, shot and even snared in the past as they are domesticated pets and not capable of living in the wild. The best people to contact (if you can get a photo it helps) are Black Foxes UK and their contact info can be found here: 

https://www.blackfoxes.co.uk/contact-us.php

THANK YOU

Hedgehog

 

We Went Inside a Den I Cute Red Fox Babies Underground

The New UK 'Big Cat' -Silver Foxes?

I want to put a few thoughts here so I know where they are when I need them. As usual I am typing as I am thinking.

 

Trying to update the fox work has become a lot weirder because of, in the main, black foxes. Also, odd though this may sound, better communications.

When I first started out there  were no computers or mobile phones (please, do not faint -it was quite normal for us and we never suffered). You had to put an appeal in newspapers or talk to people and record what they had seen. You would ask for a detailed description and the response was very likely going to be: "Oh, right you are. It was a fox" and that was it.

 

I only noticed differences in fox fur patterns after studying a lot of footage and many photographs but even then nothing extreme in morphology. While running the Exotic Animals Register (EAR) I would speak to many people and ask what other sort of wildlife was in the area and apart from foxes being rarely seen I would get mentions of (in one case from a lady who was a night time taxi driver in Devon) of black foxes -not seen once but on several occasions. Then someone mentioned white foxes and it got slightly confusing when to this were added black and white or a small white or small black foxes seen in the Scottish borders area -all ridiculed until one was shot for "looking unusual". Then I traced back the releases of arctic foxes. Hayley de Ronde of Black Foxes UK has studied this matter and discovered a great deal about the once legal fox fur trade and fox farms in the UK.

 

Most people who had foxes visiting them, like the badger feeders, kept these quiet for obvious reasons (yes, there are people out there snatching foxes in towns and cities and we can only guess why though we do know fox baiting was taking place in the Midlands a few years back). Now a black fox could have been either a melanistic red fox or silver fox -all I had to go on was "a black fox" (raccoon dogs do not help in the confusion!).

 

But it seems that since the 1990s there are more black foxes being reported and I'm not sure if that is because more people are now wildlife aware or because of other factors. It may well be likely that many of the black foxes reported are fur farm escapees or dumps and that puts this in the same scenario as the non native cat issue.

 

I know that non native cats were kept in private as well as travelling menageries and escapes from these were not rare -even primates such as gorillas as I noted in one of my earlier books-and there is a very great suspicion that "excess stock" that could not be exchanged or sold off 'escaped' along some of the rough roads menageries often travelled. Oh, UK fox hunts releasing jackals, wolves and coyotes and even wolves for the ‘sport’ when they had almost wiped out the British fox added to the mix.

 

Now the press in the old days often reported any animal sighted as "probably having escaped from some travelling menagerie" as that was an easy explanation. True, there were gorilla and chimp escapes, wolverines escaping and even humorous accounts of kangaroo escapes. I know areas of England where cats have lived and bred and been known about by locals since the 1920s/1930s and each generation has warned the next of precautions to take if they come across one of the cats. The public at large knows none of this because the cats are seen as wildlife that takes care of the less wanted critters such as rats, mice and rabbits –foxes are also on the menu.

 

Sightings of 'big cats' are always funny season items or in today's sensationalist medium either funny or “Deadly Killers At Large!!!” (yes, even when some photos do only clearly show a domestic cat or dog and the zoos that tell repoirters “it could be a large cat” really need to have their training stepped up). Country shooters who work nights on farms "pest controlling" have told me of well known local large cats and they never attempt to even shoot them because "they help in the job". None of this is widely known.

 

If someone saw a black fox in the past they might mention it but who cares? It is either an "omen of ill will" so keep quiet or so rare "you were lucky to see it".

No one -because it was a blind spot in the public vision- thought about fur farms and if they knew of an escape they probably thought to be quiet and "let it live its life in the wild".

 

Being a joke or after effect of ‘too much drink’ cat reports were never seriously looked into but we know that they were either kept in pairs when they ‘escaped’ or were freed or a male found a female and they were breeding: there is an absolute piece of pure fantasy that is often cited by certain people claiming to be “big cat” experts (X= The Unknown and “spurt” is a drip under pressure) that if there is, say, a female puma in Wales and a male puma in Cumbria, the male will travel all the way to Wales hence why a cat is reported for a few days then it is gone. That is double-dumb-ass-with oakleaf cluster talk.

 

Have the cats really bred, though?  Well, unlike the copy and paste “experts” I do the research work.  I have a book, reminiscences of a clergyman in the 19^th century in which he recounts an incident from the late 1840s in which a woman saw and perfectly described a black leopard near a Devon village. However, the locals assumed that this was a ghost because a coffin being transported to a church was dropped on the same road earlier. A ghost was far more likely an explanation –a leopard was not even considered! Other reports point to similar instances going on around the UK and even during the early years of WW 2 (before any US troops brought any type of exotic to the UK –another “experts” fantasy).

 

I have a letter from a nurse who used to visit Chester Zoo and would always visit the puma there (her favourite) and when, in the 1970s she saw one in the countryside and close to she KNEW it was a puma. But there was another smaller cat, spotted and the best she could describe it as was a "sphynx cat" and when I asked for more details I told her that what she saw was a puma cub (she had never seen one before).

 

Now we get "blur cat" photos or video footage of these cats and still no one really believes -this attitude is helped by "big cat" groups and bad reporting.

 

And the cats have a good diet out in the wild. These cats whether African wild cats, jungle cats, lynx or puma have been in the UK for at least two centuries and in that time not one person has been harmed by one. There have been faked incidents but there is only one genuine incident I can think of and that involved a scratch (very light) from a lynx that a woman received when she tried to take a wild rabbit it had killed from it –I have no idea why anyone would do something that daft.

 

So we are now getting reports of black fox cubs (but all fox cubs are black so...) but far more people are noticing and photographing and filming black foxes so we can tell what is a melanistic red fox or a silver fox. Recent escapees or the current generation of offspring of escapees that have realised, as red foxes have, that humans chuck food out willy-nilly so why struggle looking for rabbits during hard times or when there are extra cubs to feed? (yes, the correct term is “kit” but using that term usually gets blanks looks but you say “cubs” everyone knows what you mean!)

 

Unlike the large cats we have to look at whether escapee offspring are moving into towns (which they have not though they are observed on the outskirts –as are rats and rabbits) and whether this might lead to interbreeding between the red fox and North American Silver fox –the silver fox is a domesticated pet fox.

 

I was once told that if I received one or two reports (totally different field) of something to plot them on a map. Then I ought to go back a year and see whether there were similar reports and plot those on a separate map. And I ought to do this for each year I could find reports. I did that with cats and found there were territories as well as patterns. On a combined map it looks impressive!

 

What the mapping showed me were how reports increased but more importantly no one was told of the sighting reports - until they contacted me.

 

I can see the same thing happening with black/silver foxes. In this case the only way to tell if silver foxes have bred "in the wild" is if photos or film turns up showing a really young individual and this is why licensing or registration of these foxes is needed because you have to ask whether this was a young individual bred from two pets and it escaped, is a young silver fox that was purchased and escaped or is it the offspring of wild living silver foxes?

 

I hate to say it but the similarities are far too similar and so are the areas in which the escapes/sightings are reported. This leads me to conclude that Hayley de Ronde

may well suffer quite a few confusion headaches in future 

 

The 'big cat' mystery of today could soon be the "black fox mystery" and sadly there is no current legislation to tighten up the controls on who can keep these foxes -control of cats, primates, etc had no legislation until 1976 after all and now any exotic in the wild is on a government public hit list. They are classed as an “invasive species” and this means that they are trapped, poisoned, snared and shot with impunity. An escaped pet raccoon dog can be shot or even euthanized (killed) and the owner still be looking for it.

 

Humans have slaughtered and made extinct many, many species. We have introduced rabbits and rats (the former deliberately for ‘sport’) as well as rabbits to countries such as Australia which has already made species extinct and thinks nothing of shooting huge numbers of kangaroos from helicopters as well as snaring, poisoning, shooting and even clubbing feral cats and dogs and that includes foxes while shouting “protecting a unique natural environment!”  Yet that is just an excuse to allow killing to continue and a lot do it more for ‘fun’ than anything else. Prey numbers (rats, mice, rabbits) increase but that’s fine –they can shoot, poison, snare and club those and there is never a clear thought that tells them that if you leave the Predator they will take care of the Prey and the predators numbers do not increase as there is natural regulation (breed then food is plentiful but stop breeding when there is little food –that is scientifically proven).

 

In the UK the use of snares is abhorrent. They kill pet cats, dogs, hedgehogs and badgers (the latter two supposedly “protected species”) as well as foxes. Badger baiting and hunting foxes with dogs is still taking place on the Shropshire-Cheshire border weekly…and local police know it. Protected birdsre-introduced are also killed –shot, poisoned and nests smashed.  Yet the UK is “a nation of animal lovers”.

 

What we should be doing is letting the new introduced species that have been here for at least two centuries get on with living.  The economic value to local communities of “Tours of the Big Cat sighting territory” etc could be great but when mentality allows badger baiting, culling as well as fox killing to continue there is little chance.  We are in a country where a farmer spots an escaped pet lemur and shoots it “because it looked odd” or where another farmer kills an arctic fox for the same reason.

 

The UK wants to maintain the reputation –the chocolate box fake image- as a nation of animal lovers and Her Majesty’s Government declaring all invasive species must be killed because “they will wipe out our native wildlife”  which is a lie. Canada Geese are not native…well they have been accepted as native now and there are many others that can be listed. Ancient woodland and countryside is torn up to allow railway lines and motorways to be built and each of these results in a bigger negative impact on the environment than any raccoon dog or lynx. In my own city, Bristol, the City Council brags about the environment and its pledge to encourage wildlife and birds and yet time and again they have torn up hedgerows and chopped up trees (in nesting season) destroying nests and I have witnessed this first hand on several occasions.

 

We need to understand that evolution is evolution and it has had a lot of assistance from humans in the past.

 

With Silver foxes –I didn’t forget- there are reputable breeders but the bottom line is that they breed to sell.  For every legitimate breeder there are a dozen who want only the money.  We have heard the rumours of attempts to breed silver foxes with red foxes. We have seen the silver fox escapes: and one is showing a leg injury while another lost its leg through a snare all while keepers shrug and declare “not mine!” (the silver foxes ‘obviously’ arrived here in a flying saucer).

 

If you want a pet silver fox –fine.  However, there should be responsibility on the breeders to ensure that whether a vixen or dog fox before they are sold to anyone they should be incapable of breeding. Anyone saying “I’m looking for a male and female pair” should sound alarm bells.  Recapturing and then treating and re-homing the escapees - if they survive the cars, snares and shooters- costs a lot of money and that should be the responsibility of the owner though there seems to be an attitude of ducking out of responsibility: not only should prospective new homes be checked as well as facilities before and silver fox is sold but it should also be ensured by law that every animal is micro-chipped  and local authorities should check the new owner’s facility at least once a year (as with old Dangerous Wild Animals Act regulations) to check for potential escape risks.

 

It is a sad thing to write but if this type of legislation is not brought in then we may one day find silver foxes escaping, breeding and at some point replacing the red fox but at the same time being labelled an “invasive species” –and the horrors that entails.

 

Time for coffee

https://www.blackfoxes.co.uk/

k