Slug pellets, Poison and Foxes

miss annie

<P>On Wednesday night I heard a kerfuffle and some banging around outside the kitchen window so we went to investigate. There was a handsome young fox, banging its head against the wall, convulsing and clearly in distress and a lot of pain.</P> <P>I called the RSPCA (takes a loooooong time to get through their automated fundraising messages), and then we went out to the garden with our upstairs neighbour who is very intrepid and brilliant with animals. The fox had fallen to the ground convulsing and was struggling to breathe so we picked him up in a towel and laid him on the ground, mad him comfortable and soothed him as much as we could.  </P> <P>Just as he died the RSPCA man arrived. The best guess he could make was that the fox had possibly eaten slug pellets and been poisoned. Apparently when you put pellets down in big clumps instead of scattering them, they smell great to foxes, dogs and cats and they eat them. They are made to smell and taste attractive so that the target animals are attracted to them.</P> <P>A couple of clumps is enough to kill an animal the size of a fox, so will easily finish off a dog, cat, hedgehog etc, same with rat poison.</P> <P>I know that some people hate foxes, but if you'd seen this beautiful animal die in agony you'd be horrified.</P> <P>Please, be responsible and scatter your slug pellets and poisons properly if you must use them. You could easily kill your own or someone else's pet or other wildlife by dumping it in clumps.</P>

ChangN4N6

I respect your position to love foxes but with their diseases and baby-biting I want rid and most ppl feel the same in cities if u read the poll in ev standard. . I will prob be out leaving slug pellets in massive clumps in Lorne Rd ! (Joke). There is a man in stokey who shoots them for 100 quid a go and 50 extra to take the corpse. Quicker and more humane than pellets and I would happily have a whip round and get the mangy ones out of SG. Yes I know that it's the take away louts and bin bag bastards that encourage em, but u would not want to wake up with one biting your parts. Chang

Idoru

For if you want actual facts about urban foxes rather than the ravings of an internet fantasist: http://www.thefoxwebsite.org/urbanfoxes/urbandiet.html<br><br>There really is no reason to use slug pellets at all. If you really have to get rid of slugs and snails there are plenty of ways without resorting to chemicals and poisons. <br>

N2n4

@ChangN4N6 I think the point she was trying to make that no animal deserves to die in such a state of distress.

ChangN4N6

Well I agree with that. I am actually a vet. Chang

helen

Without the foxes we'd be absolutely over-run with rats and as problem wildlife encroaching on humans i suspect rats are far worse than foxes. No-one should be feeding foxes, but backing onto to Parkland Walk, for all its loveliness, you quickly realise it is a rat heaven and can't be controlled by poison as it can't be laid on public ground. The rats come into our gardens and our houses regularly. Let the foxes be our local super-predator as without them i think the rat situation will become far more uncontrollable