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.

At this time of year they always seem to be bolder. For the last three years we have experienced strange dead creatures (dead neighbour's cat on 1st year, dead neighbour's rabbit last year, just a dead crow this year) in the garden. They come closer to the house, don't seem to give a shit about us, and generally seem more desperate.

I think it is because the young are reaching teenage years and starting to scavenge for themselves, and maybe the mothers are starving too.

Wannabe - the parents were watching TV. If you look, the house is one of those tall townhouses. I guess they were watching TV in the lounge/front room, but the fox snuck in through the kitchen patio doors went past the lounge and up the stairs. The babies' bedroom could have been on the top floor which would take it longer to hear and react.

Why? They are native animals. As Riven says I have seen her with a rat in her mouth more than once (the fox, not Riven).

She is also a magnificent specimen, huge red brush and glossy coat. She is just trying to survive as best she can and as I said has never shown the slightest hint of aggression to us or even our cat. We can share space quite nicely thank you.

Of course it's odd Littlewhitewolf.

That's why it's front page news.

Well I'm going to jump in here and add my twopenneth, you shouldn't feed foxes because they them lose their fear of humans, start entering houses and attacking babies!
They are not lovely, cute or cuddly. They murder, there is barely a chicken left in my entire village because of foxes, one friend lost 24 in one night. Just killed and left. 6 others have lost their whole flocks.
They also take lambs. A sleeping 9mo is no bigger than a lamb! If a fox would kill several chickens why not two babies?
Also, if there were bite marks the jaw shape and teeth patterns would be unique to a fox. It would be easy to prove that these attacks were by a fox not a dog or human.

Native animals have a right to be where they are. Eradicating them from our cities is wrong. My neighbours seem to enjoy "our" fox as much as I do, they also have dogs and cats who crap in their yards so a fox here and there isn't going to make much difference.

Personally I love that I live in the middle of a city and we have interesting birds, squirrels (though greys unfortunately), foxes etc. I like survivors who can adapt to changing environment. One of the best sights I ever saw was watching an eagle take a pigeon on the wing from my skyscraper office in Sydney (they ride he thermals from the buildings, like they would from a cliff).

I am a farm girl and understand the need to control pests, but I was also taught that if you can get along with something then to do so. I bet you don't object to the fact that we used to let the roo's have any leftover feed that wouldn't keep do you?

So you would just like all the red foxes to go away and die because they inconvenience humans? What about the myriad of other diseases my DCs are exposed to living in a big city? What about the horrible level of pollution they are exposed to walking down the street?

I will however stop leaving my DS2 in the back room with the patio doors open if I am not in the room and will also ensure that windows are not open enough to admit a fox, an easy and sensible precaution to take.

There is a fox around my parents' suburban house, we've seen it as early as 5pm in the gardens.

It was only a matter of time before something like this happened.

Poor children and poor parents.

You won't be saying foxes are cute when your child touches fox poo in the garden, picks up salmonella and the hospital send out environmental health to find out if you are a dirty cow who gives her child food poisoning! Which happened to a very good friend of mine.

I'm laughing a bit at Saggy's definition of foxes going after chickens as 'murder'. Likewise lambs. Saggy what do you breed chickens for? When you kill them to eat them is it murder?

Foxes are animals with the right to co-exist with people as much as anything else. They are predators so anyone with chickens/babies which might be vulnerable to foxes must be careful and take steps to deter foxes from coming near them, but that doesn't mean we should all share the view that foxes are evil.

I am very sorry for this family and think that all of you doing the amateur sleuth biz are a bit daft. Don't you think the police would have checked out the pet dog theory first? It's quite easy to tell if a household has a dog in it, especially if the emergency services are called in a hurry ie no time to hide dog/evidence. Since it has not been reported that they had a dog, I think it's fair to assume they don't have a dog.

Cats can cause toxoplasmosis and salmonella along with Giardia and Cryptosporidia, what about Lyme disease from dogs? My DS is not in the habit of touching poo.

Should we eradicate all pet dogs/cats as well?

Although a horrible and thankfully rare case, foxes are predatory, inquisitive and would "investigate" two tiny sleeping babies. Urban foxes are bold and increasingly fearless; my father chased one out of his kitchen a few years back. You also only have to see a chicken run after a fox has been in to know that they will kill and maim all, but not eat them.

we blamed local dog owners for poo on the pavements before realising it was fox poo.

Why are foxes more of a problem in cities now? Is it because of the fortnightly rubbish collections, meaning more foxes on the streets looking for food?

eric. When I kill a chicken I eat it. I don't kill 17 of them and leave the bodies strewn around the lawn!

I don't think they are cute, I think they are native animals and have a right to exist as best they can. I can't stand koalas, vile stinky creatures, but they too have a right to be where they are.

Is it because foxes are predators?

Last year we had a fox living just over our back fence in South London - it would come and bask on our patio and sit right outside the French doors staring in. DS would walk right up to the doors and bang on them but he'd just sit there on the other side of the glass looking back.

We've since moved and frequently have foxes copulating at the end of our (longer) garden.

My parents next door neighbour feeds a family of foxes who live in his garden. He goes away for a month twice a year and after a week or so the big fox starts trying to get into my parent's kitchen for food. They're brazen, the foxes around here!

this really scared me, we have foxes at the bottom of our garden, somewhere! they jump over the back fence all the time, and you can hear them squealing( fighting or mating, not sure)
I hate them with a passion.
I have always been scared of this happening, always close the doors when I go upstairs to put DS to bed, etc.
one jumped into the garden over the side fence and out over the back when DS was little in the paddling pool.

poor babies, poor parents
thank God the babies are too young to remember this and be traumatised by it, and lets hope they make a full recovery soon.

I am in no way trying to apportion blame or fault here, just trying to understadn HOW/WHY this has happened ......
I wonder whether the babies were wingeing/crying which might have attracted the fox to the noise?

or whether the first baby cried and the parents did not immediately leap up and react, which you might not do instantly, my own babies have let out big shrieks/squeals in their sleep but drifted off immediately afterwards, so perhaps this is what happened and only when the second baby yelled and there was obviously something wrong did the parents react, by which time the fox had gone?

I dont think all foxes should be killed - we should respect them as the wild animals they are.
However to me this means we should not be encouraging them into urban areas by feeding them or indirectly by leaving rubbish around.
TBH I think the fortnightly bin collections have a lot to do with it.I recycle and compost but often our blackbin is very smelly after 2 weeks in hotweather.
Feeding and encouraging these predatory animals into our urban areas is cruel to them - an old man fed a fox in our area -it became so ill that the RSPCA had to come and remove it and it was put down in the end.

So where are they supposed to go in an increasingly urban country?

apparently the dad chased the fox away