Was the news about the fox attacking two children upstairs fabricated?

[johndehaura]

Was the news about the fox attacking two children upstairs fabricated to bring back fox hunting?

If so, how much are they paid to carry out such a story, and should we investigate the corrupt and fake governments which are supposedly in charge of many countries?

Should Max Clifford Associates, PR, promotion & protection specialists be closed down?

And finally, why are people so gullible that they believe such made-up stories that are so terrible they belong in fairy tale land? Are people being drugged? What is the matter with these gullible sheeple of the world?

It's terribly embarrassing to think about my fellow human people like this.

Oh FFS of course the foxes in London are hungry. There is a massive population of them and not man rabbits.

Did you miss all the photos of the foxes in the garden of the house which have been in the papers this week? There is a photo on the front page of the Daily Mail of a fox trotting down the pavement infron of the copper guarding the house, brazen as anything. There have been 4 foxes trapped in their back garden this week.

The real question is whether it would have recieved the same coverage if it had been a house on a council estate in the north.

but if there are that many foxes then that is an indication that there is enough food to feed them.

Babies don't smell of food - they smell of humans, in the same way adults do. The fox wouldn't know they were adults until it went to check.

I didn't say it wasn't a fox.

But it is far more plausible that someone, be that the family, or the neighbours, had been feeding the foxes thus desensitising them to humans, thus leading to the foxes going into the house as the house represents the food he gets, than to believe that a fox, who had never before been fed by humans, would randomly go into a house, up two flights of stairs, and randomly attack two sleeping babies in the belief that they were food.

Maybe these foxes had been encouraged. Maybe people thought they were cute cubs. Maybe this fox had been into a house before and hadn't been chased away or had been there for a while before being discovered.

All of you who are saying that "there is more to this than meets the eye", what exactly are you accusing this poor family of?

Agree this is just like the McCann's. WTF is wrong with some people?

Not sure how true it is but it said in the papers that foxes are used to scavenging in bins for food and that the smell of nappies will remind them of food as nappies are in bins. Makes sense to me.

Plus if the twins had dirty nappies the fox may have been wanting to eat the nappies. My dog loves eating poo, cat poo, toddler poo, horse poo. So I can see that a hungry urban fox would also eat poo.

It is highly possible that the fox in question had been "encouraged" previously, either by this family or by neighbours, with no thought for the possible consequences of taking away their natural fear of people, but that doesnt mean that it wasn't the fox wot dunnit.

Can I just draw your attention to possibly the most exciting post I have seen anywhere on the interwebs in the last year?

scroll down to 20-05-2010, 11:50 PM

If I knew what tweeting was I would be tweeting this everywhere.

Foxes don't just bite when they are hungry, fo food. They bite and kill far more than that. Hence they will kill 20 chickens in a run and eat half of one. Hence they will chew all the cables in my garden, which are not even food! It wouldn't have been hunting the babies, or any humans, just came across them and responded to them being wriggly squeaky little things.

And urban foxes are frequently thin, ill, diseased looking creatures, with terrible mange.

Stripey - am terribly worried by your 17.55pm post...

Please come and tell me that we are not going to be face with Man Rabbits - I've heard they are the very worst kind of rabbit [shivers]

The man rabbits are definetly the very worst kind of rabbits, have you seen the Wer Rabbit? Similar to that. Big mutant half rabbit, half man things. They would definetly attack small babies.

nobody is accusing anyone of anything. This idea that people are just supposed to say "how tragic, totally unavoidable" is just bizarre.

Fact is it might have been avoidable. If the family, or someone else, had been feeding the urban foxes thinking it was a good thing to do/that they liked to see them in their gardens/that they wanted to encourage them, then a lesson can be learned from this tragedy.

If the neighbours had been feeding the foxes they have hopefully decided off the back of this that doing so is not adviseable and they will stop. if the family had been feeding the foxes then sadly they have learned the hard way that it was a bad idea.

Saying that it's a bad idea to feed urban foxes does not mean one is accusing someone.

But clearly lessons can be learned from this.

The fact that two children have been injured does not make this a tabu discussion.

The talk of conspiracies and fox hunting and the like is of course just rubbish.

But the discussion of people feeding wild animals in their back garden and encouraging predators with potentially detremental results is, IMO, a valid point of discussion.

Oh so that's what you're accusing them of.

Do you have any evidence?

ahhhhhcatinthehat so the OP is a TWAT of the highest Hor Derve!

The wolves did it

"Yes, it was David Cameron's pet trained fox wot did it"

Ok, that's atually really funny.

I'm not accusing the family of anything. I'm sure it happened.
All I'm saying is imagine you were me, half-heartedly listening to BBC world while I'm doing the cooking, (which usually only ever reports US news or the odd British thing.) Then, 2 weeks after DC becomes PM I suddenly hear a tale about a nasty fox.....
It just seemed bizzare, because I'D heard nothing about the increase in dogs attacking children, not even a single story about that, only what I'D heard from mumsnet.
Is it really unreasonable to wonder why they are really pushing this fox story and ignoring lots of other equally important news....Stranger things have happened than a government using the media to push their agenda.

But yes, when I read the details on here now, and see that it really was a horrific attack, then it makes sense that it was reported because it was such a rare occurence.

Well, I've seen - with my own eyes - what a fox can do to two geese. In one attack.

And for that reason alone, I think a fox is capable of this.

Maybe not all foxes and not all of the time. but capable. Absolutely.

I think the other reason it became a big talking point, was because it sparked a debate about all the issues around council tax and waste collections. At least, it did on Radio 4, there was a whole discussion about whether fortnightly bin collections, refusal to take rubbish if recycling was put in the wrong bag, the threat to charge by rubbish amount etc., all meant more rubbish on the streets, therefor more food for rats, foxes, pigeons, flies etc. This case just triggered a wider debate.

yes, harimo, I know a fox is capable, and has done this, that is not my point.

HB, but it got onto BBC world before the wider debate started....

I'm really curious as to how this will pan out.

"Is it really unreasonable to wonder why they are really pushing this fox story"

Maybe not unreasonable... but shows little understanding of how news is gathered and reported.

BBC World, like all agencies, provides stories its audience will be interested in. Someone listening in another country isn't that fussed about most of our domestic news items but a rogue fox (iconic British animal) attacking babies is pretty arresting.

Several years ago there were stories of seagull attacks in Kent. Not in the headlines because someone wishes to push an anti-seagull agenda, but because of its unusual nature.

I am starting to despair at the way the mother of these injured children has become a target for suspicion, derision and abuse. Animal rights and anti-hunting supporters do themselves no favours, ignoring facts and reverting to the default setting that wild animals are always the injured party. Such blinkered people simply come out of it looking stupid and naive.

Can I repeat, I am not doubting what has happened.

"Someone listening in another country isn't that fussed about most of our domestic news item"

But Err chil, you should see the crap BBC world reports about the US. Someone's cat got stuck in a tree and blah blah... Honestly, really random and insignificant stuff that no-one in Japan could possibly be interested in.
Seeing as the BBC is BRitish I've been despairing of the fact I get no domestic news at all, I've had to glean it off mumsnet or the papers, I was a bit suprised to suddenly get some news.

"Such blinkered people simply come out of it looking stupid and naive. "

I used to be very good friends with an Iranian. Our hobby was to see how a particular news item was reported in completely different ways in different countries, depending on the politics of that specific country. It was amazing to observe how news could be twisted to suit the individual governments. If you don't believe your own government does the same then I think that makes you stupid and blinkered.

It is 'stupid and naive' for animal rights people to automatically assume wild animals are the injured party. Do read what I wrote again as you've clearly misunderstood...

However, you make my case nicely about the fox story on BBC World..... If 'random and insignificant stuff' like a cat stuck up a tree gets an airing, then a fox attacking a child will also qualify on the basis of being 'random and insignificant'.

So to summarise... The conspiracy theorists would like us to believe that a rare, but confirmed attack on two babies by an urban fox witnessed at the scene was

1. A completely invented story generated by the government as a PR stunt to support the reintroduction of fox hunting
2. An anti-fox cover-story for an attack perpetrated either by a family pet that has yet to be discovered or by the parents themselves

I'm not against fox hunting, and the story does seem strange..........

Of it's course it's a strange story. So is a whale finding its way up the River Thames into Central London. Or a mechanic finding a 6ft snake under a car bonnet Things that are strange but true happen all the time when you're dealing with animals. Why a vicious example of the fox species should be a special case worthy of its very own conspiracy theory beats me.

You do know that it was foxes that blew up the world trade center, don't you? All the evidence is out there if you know where to look....