Fox Attack On Twin Girls

[saggyhairyarse]

I just read this on the 'Latest News' on BBC News but when I clicked on the headline there was no info.

I am shocked and hoping they are not seriously hurt.

Apparently. However it is still vanishingly unlikely to happen. Perhaps we should exterminate all animals within a 10 mile radius of human habitats in case they act completely out of character.

Why pretend that foxes don't attack when one just has?

Orm - both bears and foxes are predators. Neither are prey (except to hunting humans). It has been said several times on this thread that a fox will take a baby lamb (somewhat bigger than a chicken) and that they are NOT nervous of humans in the urban areas.

So you are being somewhat fatuous.

And, quite often, feeding hedgehogs is more detrimental to them than good, especially if feeding them bread and milk (not saying you do, just that some people still do)

Who is pretending they don't? I just think it's so unusual as to be not worth getting hysterical about.

But it's hardly sensible to compare a fox with a bear now is it? That truly is 'fatuous'

And this thread isn't about harm to animals. Only human ones.

And a new born lamb isn't that much bigger than a chicken as it happens.

You stated earlier in the thread that you found it hard to believe. Your use of the word 'apparently' in your last post suggests that you do not believe the attack happened.

Who is being hysterical BTW?

I think that some of the reactions on here have been hysterical.

Comparing a bear to a fox being one.

thumbwitch compared the situation of foxes living in urban environments in this country to that of bears living in urban environments in N. America.

Hardly hysterical.

Goes without saying that I wish the little ones a full recovery. Horrible thing to have happened

Comparing the damage a fox can do to the damage a bear can do? A little OTT no?

The comments on the DM site are unbelievable.

BTW my first response was before I read any details. My initial response was but clearly it happened.

"Urban settings are not foxes' natural environments - they have moved in there because it is an easy source of food and people feeding them or allowing them to ravage bins doesn't help the situation.

People in areas of Canada and North America have this problems with bears - perhaps if the foxes were bigger and more obviously dangerous, people would be less inclined to want to keep them around in settings that are unnatural for them."

I really don't think that's OTT- thumbwitch has not compared the damage bears can do with the damage foxes can do, but has merely stated that people are more inclined to keep foxes around than they are bears, and questioned this approach.

Well of course.

But we don't have a 'natural' relationship with wild animals do we? Sometimes feeding them is a response to the huge stresses that having to share an environment with humans causes. I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that it's disrespectful when we make it so hard for wild animals to actually have a wild environment.

i would think a well-fed fox would be unlikely to bother to attack anything....

thanks for understanding me, tethersend!

It was a good point IMO

I think that rather than the foxes moving into our territory, we have gradually covered theirs... very much like the aforementioned bears.

I hope those little girls make a full and speedy recovery.

Nobody is saying that foxes are as dangerous as bears; the point is that because bears are more dangerous, people are careful not to absorb them into their environment in the same way that they do foxes- thumbwitch was asking if foxes should be treated the same way by virtue of being a wild animal in an unnatural urban environment.

A well-fed wild animal of any description will associate humans with food, becomes less afraid of them, and is more likely to become a nuisance. This can be seen with monkeys, foxes, bears - feeding them is bad news for both the animal and people.