Environmental Health

[whatisthisinhere]

I don't know where to post this, but it concerns wildlife in my garden, so thought here was good. My neighbours have reported me to Environmental Health for apparently encouraging foxes, have been accused of leaving food out for foxes. There are foxes that visit all the gardens including mine. I feed birds Ina bird feeder, it's the on,y food I leave in my garden. Could leaving bird feed out encourage foxes? I put it in a bird feeder which is squirrel proof, so. To exactly scattered around. I don't want to stop, especially as we head into winter, and it's been dry so I have various shallow containers of water and bird baths.
Do I have to stop?
Im actually quite annoyed about it. My neighbours are awful in lots of ways, but this is new

Bird feeders can encourage rats but only if the food is on the ground. Foxes find their own food, usually small animals & birds, if anything they keep the rat population down by eating babies in the nest.

From what you say I suspect this isn't about foxes at all.

I'm pissed off with my neighbour as she has decided to feed feral cats. Only she isn't feeding feral cats, she's feeding all the neighbourhood cats (most of which are very well fed by their neighbours) and also feeding rats and possibly foxes. I don't mind the foxes so much, but over the last few weeks I've seen more than a dozen rats on the road near where she leaves the food out.

So if you are leaving actual dog or cat food out in open bowls, then maybe stop. If you aren't, then forget about it. Feeding birds and providing water for wildlife isn't "encouraging foxes" and no-one from Environmental Health will do anything.

You aren't leaving out cat food, or throwing chicken carcasses on your lawn, so I'd just blithely ignore it.

Did the neighbour tell you they had reported you?

Make a note of everything, because there is such a thing as 'vexatious complaints' and the authorities take a dim view of people doing that.