Foxes

[LatteLady]

Just before I went out to supper tonight, found my next door neighbour in tears coming up her front path... her cat had been savaged by foxes. From the sounds of it, Ralph a sleek cream cat with a ginger tinge will need to be put down as the fox has ripped open his under belly.

This is the third incident in our area over the last week, another lady was walking her dog and had to get between the fox and her dog and then got attacked too.

Am I unreasonable to think that there should be a method of culling this urban menace?

i love foxes as well as cats. i live by a forest and have literally only ever seen CATS bullying local foxes. don't believe everything you read in the paper.

I wonder if this might be connected with the cold weather ? I live in the countryside and my house backs on to open fields. I know there are foxes about but since the cold weather they have been much braver about coming close to the houses in their search for food.

eggs, raw eggs, and cheese, they love cheese blue :-D

I am sorry that you lost your cat though, Stat. I love all animals and want to protect them all. Now I must go and tuck my chickens up. Don't worry they are already in their aviary...but they need to be locked into their coop to keep lovely and warm.

punk that you tube footage was shocking - again it says thats from 2012 - hunting with dogs is illegal and yet that clearly showed a hunt setting a pack of dogs onto that fox

its inhumane - the fox was tiny and very outnumbered - that woman was so brave to grab it like she idid. good on her. i hope she showed the footage to police.

lots of vicious cats attacking defenceless foxes

Urban foxes are a pet, rural ones are are and little problem. Blustocking should shove her biscuit where the sun don't shine.

lurcherlover The fox is native to this country. The cat and dog aren't. Sorry, but I think the fox has more right to be here.

Hahaha so you are the BNP of the fox lovers!!!

Nutria are most definitely veggie.

Haven't read the rest of the thread but:

Why is your first thought, "We need to kill the wildlife" rather than "We need to watch our pets?"

I think it's quite sad that any species of animal that manages to survive amongst our suffocating urban sprawl is considered vermin that should be exterminated

astounded at someone thinking nutria eat chickens! blimey. they are a type of water vole arent they?

a rare sight now in this country so lets just propigate rumours that they should be trapped and killed then

some people.....

We're over run with cats, can we have them culled? I haver never heard of foxes attacking and I live in the country.

I would give my first born child up to The Foxes if I had to,

signed the The Fox Huggers

I'm rural and hardly ever see a fox - deer much more common.

Punk - do you work where they filmed some of Wolfblood - my eldest is obsessed with that and wants to do one of the Wolf Walks.

Latte, will clearly get flamed, but we are over run with foxes too and one of them sits on the other side of the road and just waits for our jrt pup to notice him and go mad. Fox completely unperturbed. You might say he was grinning if you were that way inclined.

Two nights ago it sounded as though jrt got seriously the worst of fox and jrt confrontation..am hoping that as jrt grows up fox population will give us a wide berth.

I hate: the bins being scattered, the guinea pigs being terrorized, the stinky poo, the fox fleas. The cubs are sweet to look at, most of the foxes are themselves handsome save where they have got mange, but they are a complete nuisance and I can't keep hens. We have with difficulty got rid of them from their den under the shed but they still have places they like to lie and sun.

The fox is sick and needs killing. Normal foxes don't do that.

You are perfectly within the law to get a couple of hounds to get it too - You just have to shoot it yourself.

they are a type of water vole arent they

They are massive rat like things.

They do run off with chickens, according to neighbours who are often waving a shotgun about when the chickens start yelling and a rather sheepish looking nutria bumbles off going "what? what!"

Scare the shit at me when ai come accross them with the dogs. They bare their (MASSIVE) teeth, andnthen change their mind, shooting off into the rice fields while the dogs go all "don't you flash your teeth at my mum!?!" defensive and bristly.

The babies are cute. See them tumbling and boshing into each other in the field by the stream behind my bathroom window. Parents...not so cute.

It's the tail! Can't stand that rat tail on steriods.

And I am originally from the country, and used to rural foxes. Who are much less obtrusive,imv, although when they get into the hen run that is it. No sense of restraint.

Also, No the hunting ban doesnt affect urban foxes.
And anyway people still hunt. It's not totally illegal if you're clever about it.

I think they filmed that oop North, Mrs C.

And can we not start on hunters? Theres nothing wrong with it and the arseholes videoing people partaking are the ones that need locking up since they know jack all about the law.

Just checked Punk and they filmed a bit at your place with some of the wolves - DS is obsessed so I had to email and ask.

Foxes are the feeble excuse reasons I don't have chickens.

I have seen one trotting down our road at midnight, and DS1 recently saw one in our back garden. Apparently our half blind cat, who usually paws pathetically at the cat flap as if it won't open properly, shot though it at 100mph. .

So, if they really are shy, and we've seen two recently, we must be riddled with them. DS2 tells me a neighbour knows they have a den (is that the right word?) in their garden. My Dsis, who lives near the center of a large town happily watches the fox in her garden (especially when it had cubs). She's scared of the badger, though.

I stand corrected! There are lots of activities for children, especially during half term times....writing workshops, zookeeper days. Michelle Paver comes up quite a lot - she is absolutely lovely and I have never seen someone with such an astonishing affinity with animals.

Is your son aged 12 or over? I believe that is the min age for a walk. Walking with them...it's a real wow.

On the contrary, hunting with dogs is illegal, Dizzy. Dressing up in silly clothes, blowing horns and watching with glee while an animal is ripped to pieces is not hunting. It is well-heeled cowardice. A person who can shoot straight and kill humanely is a hunter.