Posted on 11/09/2004 5:13:51 PM PST by Dan from Michigan
Outfoxing London's legion of urban foxes
Sun Nov 7, 3:36 PM ET Offbeat - AFP
LONDON (AFP) - Mrs E Reynolds of Bexleyheath, southeast London, was truly in a state of shock. "Last night I sat in my living room and heard a strange noise. On investigating, I discovered a fox in my kitchen," she wrote to her local newspaper, the News Shopper, the other week.
"It had wandered into the dining room and then the kitchen, through the French doors," she said. "Having helped itself to my husband's shoe it had come back for one of mine."
"This is a regular occurrence in our house," she added. "My son found one curled up in an upstairs bedroom."
Few animals in Britain arouse passions quite like the fox -- and not just in the countryside where the ancient blood sport of fox hunting with hounds is soon to be outlawed.
London, the biggest city in Europe with seven million people, is home to perhaps 5,000 adult foxes and 10,000 cubs, reckons John Bryant, the capital's premier expert on humane fox deterrence.
They're certainly a common sight. When the London Wildlife Trust, a campaign group, asked 3,000 Londoners a few years ago what they spotted by way of fauna in their backyards, 1,400 replied foxes.
"Foxes are an element of London's wildlife. We should be living with them, not against them," said Jenny Scholfield, conservation manager for the London Wildlife Trust.
Nationwide, there could be as many as 33,000 urban foxes, according to a survey by the Mammal Research Unit of the University of Bristol.
Some citydwellers love the critters to death, such as old age pensioners who splash out every week on frozen chicken wings to feed them. Others tremble in fear that a fox will eat the head off their cat -- or worse.
Last year, at the height of the summer silly season for news, it was reported that a fox broke into the bedroom of a four-year-girl in Islington, north London and bit her on the arm.
Yet another likely story, says the silver-haired Bryant, a veteran animal welfare campaigner and walking encyclopedia on foxes who's heard plenty of tall tales in the six years that he's been dealing with Londoners' fox problems.
"There is no authenticated case of a fox ever attacking a human being of any age," Bryant told AFP over coffee at Greenwich Park during a break in his busy day.
He attributes the rise of the urban fox to the building of the railways in the 19th century -- around the time when fox hunting amongst the landed gentry in the countryside was at its height.
"It's very common when you're on a train journey to see foxes on the embankment," he said. "We think that is the way they came into the city and then expanded -- and what did they find? A ready-made environment."
Elongated gardens, often untended and overgrown, for instance. Garden sheds with space to dig a den under. Ponds for catching frogs. Compost heaps with worms to snack on. And garbage. Lots of garbage.
Bryant says it's no coincidence that the four London boroughs with the most fox problems are the ones that have adopted tall reinforced plastic garbage bins -- known as "wheelie bins" -- for every household.
He recalls a scene outside his window, before wheelie bins were introduced in his neighbourhood, as a group of foxes helped themselves to bags of garbage that lined the street.
"They didn't need to hunt for food all week," he said. "They would have buried it in their larder and pecked out a bit every night."
Life for the urban fox can be nasty, brutish and short, however, with the average life expectancy of a cub born in London being a mere two years. Traffic is the worst killer; a dead fox on a busy street is not an uncommon sight.
Bryant, whose 1,700 clients have included the prime minister's residence of Downing Street, Saint Paul's Cathedral and power stations, eschews guns and poisons. Nor does he favour trapping urban foxes and then releasing them out into the wild.
Such methods, he says, are illegal in many instances, even unethical -- and downright pointless, since new foxes can move into vacated territory in as little as three days.
For people with foxes digging up their gardens and making a mess -- "the thing that gets people most is fouling" -- Bryant has a pragmatic prescription: determine what's attracting them, then deal with whatever it happens to be.
Sometimes he suggests repellents; sometimes the solution is astonishingly simple, like taking neighbourhood dogs for strolls around school grounds. Their urinary calling cards can be all it takes to shoo a fox away.
"I would like to see more councils adopting wheelie bins," he said. "I'd like to see people clean up their habits. Let's have enclosed compost heaps. Let's put screens over ponds."
Much as he admires them, Bryant says he would prefer to see fewer urban foxes, for their own good.
"When you get an animal that is extremely lucky if it lives two years, when they should live to 12 without any problem at all, then it's not a good environment," he said.
I must desire you, neighbors all,
To halloo the fox out of the hall,
And cry as loud as you can call:
Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!
And cry as loud as you can call;
Oh keep you all well there!
From an Elizabethan folk song, "Tomorrow the Fox Will Come to Town."
Maybe if they allowed fox hunting, the foxes wouldn't have to live in urban areas.
No kidding. They have it easy. I have to look out for deer, coyote, black widows, brown recluses, copperheads and timber rattlers.
Talley Ho! Get that Red a$$ed mama!
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