Ok, a shocking event but why is it such a "story"..

[anonymousbird]

.. that warrants TV interviews etc?
fox attacks twins

Is Max Clifford behind this?

Many animals have become extinct due to humans direct involvement not only 'part of nature'

Humans have grown beyond the whim of nature (except major events e.g. earthquakes etc)we have reached out and instead of our surrondings controlling us we control our surroundings. So as a species we should concern ourselves with what we do to other species also as the animals are not going to extinct due to nature but to human activity.

Nature has a way of balancing things out, human activity does not balance out.

I would add that ecology / biodiversity conservation is not actually based on being detrimental to humanity, rather benefitting them by conserving foodwebs and natural resources to sustain all.

However, I think I am done banging my head against the wall here.

skips off over bridge hand in hand with rabid fox and biro-clutching moomin

yes you are right, humans have changed the environment by planting crops etc. for ages and this has made certain creatures extinct over time. I don't think everything can flourish equally, and I think humans should come first. There are certain flys and bugs that we try to control to stop them spreading disease to us

Well I think that the moomins must know a thing about extinction. All those weird little beasts that inhabit Moomin valley and it's environs - where are they now? Oh yes.... ask Moominpappa about his bridge building upsetting the ecological balance.... Or did they eat them?

Cheninblanc of course I am not saying that all ecologist/biodiversity conservationists are being detrimental to humans. Let's hope they can sort this bee problem out and protect our habitat. But I do think that the wild animal re-introduction programmes near to humans are a different thing.

You say near to humans like there are major locations where there aren't any humans the problem is that humans take up so much space that there comes a point where there is no more space other than near humans.

Also you talk about how things cannot flourish equally but the funny thing is that the ones i can think of that do flourish are pigeons, rats and flys not really a good selection v.v

whoops meant flies**

Sammyuni, I think that the media has encouraged the view that humans are harming biodiversity, and this has led to the situation where foxes have proliferated in urban environments and where many councils are reluctant to do anything about it. This has also led to some activists championing wild animals above humans. This is why the Sun reports

"After the attack Hackney Council employed a pest control expert to lay traps in the couple's back garden. Over two weeks six foxes were trapped and killed, sparking a furious response from animal activists."

"This has also led to some activists championing wild animals above humans. "

Hardly. The foxes were killed. The humans were unlikely to be, or even hurt a second time. It's not quite a level playing field is it?

Firstly, you are confusing animal rights with conservation.

Animal rights is primarily concerned with saving individual animals.

Biodiveristy conservation is about preserving entire species.

The two overlap, but generally have distinct goals.

thank God it isn't a level playing field. If the animal activists had had their way then the foxes wouldn't have been killed. I think that there is an increasing trend for biodiversity experts and global warmers to predict catastrophe and this will impact humans as more and more people believe it and as councils follow UN guidelines on biodiversity etc. Let's hope we don't get to a level playing field.

Cheninblanc you are probably right, I am no expert on biodiversity as you are. But I am quite interested in politics and world events and think that these movements are essentially political in nature and are not driven by scientists.

Well thats because the offending fox was caught and then they went on to cull foxes within the area.

Firstly these attacks are ridiculously rare and i don't see people going around killing dogs which attack people so much more then foxes do.

Secondly wiping foxes from an area does not do anything as different foxes just move in, it's like going into a sewer killing all the rates there and being surprised that the next week there are just as many rats as before.

The underlying problem is that there is very little space for foxes to live as people have moved into their natural habitat and foxes need to also compete with other foxes as well. If you truly want foxes to be removed you would either have to give large amounts of space or completely wipe them out of the wild in the UK (which happened to wolves)

claig see that's where we differ and why I think you are a raving loon. There is no secret political conspiracy re: biodiversity loss or increasing global temperatures. They are simply scientific facts.

I still don't quite understand where you think the fox issue comes in, but Sammyuni has the basic points right. Some species, like rats and foxes, adapt better to urban environments than others. "Managing" them is extremely difficult.

ok Cheninblanc, I don't mind being called a raving loon. They called Galileo a raving loon too. Before we both die, we will probably find out that the whole thing was a fraud as more Climategates come to the surface.

Well claig the evidence is all around you i guess if you list most of the popular animals that exist today how many of them are labelled as endangered and look at their numbers.

I remember reading reports that they had wrongly classified many species as endangered when it wasn't actually the case. I'm sure that Cheninblanc will know more about this.

There are plenty of ecologists/animal rights nutters/etc. who want to put an end to the human race, such as the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, as well as assorted other nutters such as PETA, who think animals are more important than humans.

The green movement is to a large extent populated by former Marxists and other such loonies whose aims are, in essence, to destroy society.

Apologies for the personal attack. That was immature and unnecessary.

I am afraid that the increasing freak events (floods, hurricanes) and changes in weather patterns (droughts) over our lifetimes, affecting not only species extinctions, but also our food resources and general environment will make it only too clear that climate change is anything but a fraud.

I really am going to walk away now.

SomeGuy, thanks for talking sense and explaining it to Guardian readers

"Poor foxes. We build over their woodland, put roads through their fields then wonder why they start coming into our homes!
World is upside down and back to front."

I totally agree with this

ok CheninBlanc, no offence taken. But please look into politics, not just science. Decisions are taken politically by powerful people to suit their own ends, and they can easily dress their decisions up in science. In the middle ages, it suited the Church politically to say that the earth was the centre of the universe, and they had many experts who agreed with them.

Someguy, thanks for being a conspiracy freak weirdo.