Foxes and the local ecology

Walking past Vagabond the other evening, broad daylight and not much after 7pm, we encountered a young fox so tame it looked as if it would eat out of your hand. No fear, it was a couple of feet away. This got me thinking. I think they're has been a big change in the local ecology in the last two-three years. All the squirrels have gone. So have the garden birds. My back garden, not long ago a wildlife haven, is now sterile. Is this due to the foxes?

Comments

  • We have fox families frolicking about in the back gardens all the time. We still have squirrels and even the cat hasn't deterred the incredible variety of garden birds from visiting. Everything from goldfinches to jays. The problem might be your neighbours. Patios and decking and neat gardens to more to decimate the wildlife's habitat than foxes do. The gardens all along our road are a bit wild with many mature trees.
  • There's fox that regularly pops into Tesco now - @FourEyes can confim
  • Foxes should be shot. Look at the Evening Standard stories about kids regularly bitten and infected. Terrible. And u speak as a vet who has at least one dog or cat a month gashed by a fox. Chang
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  • At least 5 in last 12 months. Worst was a baby bitten when asleep . There was an even worse case in Stoke Newington where u do expect violence. I bet you would not like one to come out of the New River and give u it's fleas and snarls. Chang
  • There have been two reported attacks by foxes on babies. Most experts agree that the injuries are more consistent with dog bites than foxes. <br><br>It's unlikely that foxes will have much of an effect on birds or squirrels, although I'm sure they do take baby birds and eggs, as do Magpies and Grey Squirrels. The lack of birds in the last two or three years is probably due to the combination of hard winters and poor breeding seasons. Bird mortality, especially smaller species, has been very high in the last few winters. Normally this wouldn't be a problem - in a decent breeding season some species can have up to three broods, replacing those that have died in the winter. But recent breeding seasons have been pretty rubbish so the numbers aren't being kept up. <br><br>Rising temperatures in Africa is also a problem. Temperature is part of what triggers migration, so birds are coming back earlier only to find the weather over here isn't so great and they've no food. <br>
  • <P>I think the foxes enjoy a feast on the frogs in our pond as do the cats.</P> <P>I would think that Cats are more responsible for killing wildlife than foxes.</P> <P>I quite  often see foxes eating left over Saturday  night dumped kebabs etc.</P>
  • A recent study in the US found that cats kill up to 3.7billion birds every year. This doesn't include feral cats, so the actual number will be much higher. <br>
  • This is the same fox Miss Annie. He's always around Vagabonds and trotting up SGR and Marquis Road at the moment. He's walked into Tesco, The Chippy and has a little sniff inside the White Lion every once in a while. <br>
  • How do you know it's the same one, Four Eyes?
  • Because it's Bernard.
  • Reynard is Bernard's second cousin. He's visiting from France. <br>
  • Whaeva they r called foxes are evil potential baby killers (lots of evidence Google it) and the fox lovers are in denial. We really should take this seriously and councils should get rid. Cats are not much better but they are too infiltrated with the old grannies of the British public to try and stage ritual exterminations many feel would be the right ecological response (re dead birds stat above). Chang Chang
  • Bring back Barky Fox!
  • Chang, don't be so gullible. Firstly, we are in fox territory, they were ere first. Secondly, if we as a species weren't so dirty, foxes wouldn't come anywhere near us but they associate us with food. Thirdly, people need o stop feeding foxes. Fourthly, if we allowed woodland to grow and stopped developing on green space, you would never see a fox. Notice the pattern here? People kill way more than foxes. I'd rather have a human cull than anything else. Humans who hold superiority over the rest of nature should be the first to go.
  • And yes, domestic cats are absolutely responsible for the decline in wild birds and squirrels. Evening Standard? Propaganda BS
  • Foxes can't sue for libel or defamation
  • Actually the biggest cause of the declines in wild bird and animal numbers is humans.<br><br>The BTO was going to launch a new project this year to track House Martins to their wintering grounds using geolocators but has had to give up on the idea because the birds were so late back from Africa this year and then abandoned their breeding grounds. Fewer babies this year will mean fewer breeding birds next. Sadly this is probably something that will occur more often as extreme weather events due to climate change increase.<br>
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  • Right. So even though pretty much every climate scientist, insurance company, biologist, botanist, physicist, etc... says manmade climate change is a huge threat we shouldn't worry about it? FFS.
  • Misscara, you know Dr Mark Brandon @iceymark don't you? He did the most brilliant talk about such things for WI last year. He'd be happy to fill you in from a polar scientists point of view. Climate does change in cycles and always has, but never as quickly and irreversably as it is now.
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