Urban MenaceThe

WHY DO WE HAVE FOXES IN URBAN ENVIOURNMENTS?At the beginning of the 1950s, the rabbit population decreased due to myxomatosis (a decease which kills rabbits) foxes moved to the cities or outer skirts of the cities and as cities grew larger, parts of the country-side immediately surrounding the urban areas became enclosed and foxes (and other animals) living there came into closer contact with humans.

WHAT DO FOXES EAT (DIET)?Foxes are omnivorous, i.e. they will eat anything. Their diet depends on the food available in the area where they live.largest component of their diet is scavenged items such as meat, bones, bread and bird food. Wild mammals, birds and invertebrates are also common.

HOW LONG CAN URBAN FOXES LIVE?In captivity foxes can live up to !fteen years but wild fox-es live very short lives, on average about two years. In London, when local authorities were still culling foxes, the average life expectancy was just fourteen months. In Bristol, before mange, life expectancy was slightly longer, on average eighteen months.

PROBLEMS WITH FOXES?

Invertebrates:Is a category that includes earthworms and insects, such as beetles, cutworms (moth larvae) and adult crane"ies (daddy-long-legs).

Mange: Type of a desese that e#ects dog’s skin could also be found in plnats, birds and reptiles.

Foxes can be a nuisance to gardeners and allotment owners because of fouling, digging or damaging garden plants.

Moreover, in autumn and winter, the main dispersal and breeding seasons, foxes can be heard screaming and barking and thus disturbing people’s sleep or prompting dogs to bark.

Foxes kill very few pets, and very few ri"e dustbins. In Bristol, where 5480 households were surveyed, only 2.7% reported that foxes frequently ri"ed their dustbins, 16.4% occasionally and 80.9% never. With the introduction of wheelie bins, this low level of nuisance has disappeared.

In cities that are mange-free, the commonest cause of death for urban foxes is being hit by a car. In Bristol each year before the spread of mange, some 60% of foxes that died were killed by cars. Comparable !gures for Copenha-gen and Illinois were 89% and 47% respectively.

Earlier this year...

A baby boy was attacked by a fox in his home in south London.BBC’s John Andrew said: “The mother was at home and heard this awful scream, went next door where the baby was, found it had been dragged from the cot onto the "oor and the baby’s hand was in the jaws of the fox.

“She was obviously in a terrible panic and did what she could to get the fox o#, including kicking it. Eventually it did let go but the baby was found with quite serious injuries.”

Tune inOn BBC radio 4At 4:00pm for a disscussion about weather to use pest controle on foxes or not.

OUR WHY DO FOXES VISIT

There are a few common fac-tors to why foxes go to, and behave the way they do in other people’s gardens. If you use compost with !sh or animal bones you are mist likely to be having foxes come over and dig near your plants.If your garden is full of life, as in insets and inver-tebrates have made it their home then the foxes would be.paying a visit to eat them and leave animal and !sh bones so over time it would produce maggots, which are one of the most eaten thing in the urban enviournmet by foxes.

Foxes get used to their sur-rounding and recognise peo-ple and noises very quickly. This can make them very cheeky. Cubs have far less re-serve than their parents and will come right up to people, cats and dogs unaware of the dangers this often causes them. By the time a fox has reached the end of their !rst year they have learnt to re-spect all of them and should keep a safe distance away. That distance in the country-side is greater as they are just like humans, the need for personal space varies from countryside to city. They are

creatures of habit and have territories, these territories are secured by the vixen and at this time of the year will be defended. A vixen will ensure she has several safe earths for the birth of her cubs and if disturbed from one will move to another. The foxes feel safe and welcome under your neighbours shed and that is why she uses it as her home.

Cubs are typically born be-tween January and April. The litter will range from on average four to !ve cubs. It is unlikely that more than

one of these cubs will sur-vive to adult hood. A vixen will protect her cubs and it is this time of the year that we see foxes chase cats away if they get to close. No mat-ter how close you can get to a fox once caught they will bite. They are not normally aggressive unless protecting cubs or trapped.

Foxes have to eat every day and an adult fox will have learnt where and when it can eat. They follow set paths and in urban areas of-ten have several people that feed them. We recently had

to catch a fox that had a se-vere wound on his neck and over the week of trapping we had !ve calls from neigh-bours reporting his injury. Each neighbour was una-ware the other was feeding and this is one of the main issues with urban foxes....hu-mans feeding them.

Often one neighbour will feed the fox and another will dislike it. Their natural drive to survive and need for food sees them form relationships with humans. Unfortunately for the fox they cannot al-ways tell at !rst glance who they should trust.

Foxes also carry a fungal infection of the skin called ‘ringworm’. This is carried by cats, dogs and most com-monly for us hedgehogs. Depending on the species it can cause a skin infection in humans, this is easily treated with a cream and is usually only transmitted when han-dling foxes or other infected mammals. By far the highest risk of infection from a fox is from a bite. Like cats, fox bites need to be taken seri-ously and medical attention sought immediately. A num-ber of bacteria are transmit-ted in fox bites, in particular, Streptococcus species. Fox urine can transmit the dis-ease Leptospirosis which causes liver failure in hu-

“this is one of the main issues with urban foxes....humans

feeding them.”

GARDENS

for more information go to

Go to gardenersworld.com/magazine

The foxmanagment Lethal fox control has been attempted in the past by local au-thorities in England and Wales without success. Exemplary is the case of London where shooting and trapping of foxes was carried out !rst by the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (now DEFRA) and then by the London Boroughs from the 1940s to the 1970s, and in some Boroughs even into the early 1980s.

Lethal control was not e#ective as a dead animal leaves an empty territory and is quickly replaced by another fox regard-less of the number of foxes killed. Furthermore, lethal control is expensive. The costs associated with catching and killing a fox generally far outweigh the low level of nuisance caused by foxes so that most councils have stopped lethal fox control.Both prevention and non-lethal methods of control are more e#ective and cheaper, and an increasing number of council are applying them.

However, foxes cause little serious nuisance in towns and most problems are easily solved by using commercially avail-able repellents. There are a few simple measures to take to avoid problem.

Keep poultry and pets securely housed. Tidy up rubbish and bramble patches. Put all you rubbish in the bin, not by the side or, if this is not possible. put your rubbish out in the morning and not the night before the rubbish is about the be collected. Use commercially available deterrents to stop foxes leaving droppings in your garden. Make sure there are no entrances underneath your house/sheds

Planting Chillies planting chillies, garlic, onion or any other pungent smei-ing plant or vegetables will also repell foexes as these oders makes their mouth and throte swell up and give them an internal rash. chil-les contain capsaicin which gives the chillis their heat and this substance is what causes this e#ect on foxes.

Chilli plants will thrive on a sunny window sill or in a greenhouse. They have a long cropping season, so you could still be harvesting fresh chillies in December. You will need just two small pots to sow your chilli seeds; use a good quality seed compost and keep them in a bright place to ensure they germi-nate.

Do it: January - MayAt its best: Jul - AugTakes just: 10 mins to sow the seeds

Foxs are legally classi!ed as vermin and as such are on the DEFRA vermin list. There fore it is legal to kill a fox as long as it does not interfear with any other law in the UK. Akternativly you can all pest controle and they could take care of the proble for you, but due to the past experi-ence by the local councils it has not proven to be e$cant. There are the two ways of killing foxes. You can kill a fox by shooting.you can kill a fox by traping it in a cage and killing it humanly.

You can only shoot a fox as long as it does not inter-fear with any other UK law

against shooting. It is illegal to use an air ri"e to shoot fox-es. You can only trap the fox in a cage as using other traps are considered animal cru-elty. the only humane way of killing them after traping them would be to inject a lethel substance, gassing or shooting from a distance. trapping a fox and relasing it in the countrey side it con-siderd poor welfare practice. As foxes are terratoral and due to the change of envi-ournemt and lack of experi-ence because they have lived in an urban enviournemt as the are use to scrounging and not hunting could kill

them.

Letting your dog loose on the fox is not consid-

erd a crime but if more then one dog attackes or chses

the fox is cinsidered a crime as the laws in

the UK prohibit

Laws behind fox managment

Urenating in and around your garden premesis would ward o# foxes as foxes are terratorial and the smell of the urin would make them belive that this is someone els’s tarratory. You can also ask your local zoo to sup-ples for lion, tiger or uren of any other terratoral animal. In the pas that as proven to wored. All of these are home remadies of getting rid of these pesckey creatures.It is not that they are harmful to us, in certain cases they are but, its what they do to your garden. Follow these tips and tricks to repell this ani-mals rather that trying to get rid of them.

Hanging CDs or having bright lights in your garden also re-pells foxes and they are octernal and tend to olny come out at night. The bight lights and the re"ection form the CDs will

few more

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