General Chat

..........a FOUR WEEK old baby.
Surgeons in Bromley S.London have sewn it back on again. Poor little mite, his poor mother managed to get the fox off the baby.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/fox-bites-off-babys-finger-cot-attack-222521317.html#eToxgBJ

jude

Quite surprised at some of the comments on that link...some people don't believe it at all...others are blaming the mother for leaving the door open ! x

Must admit l did'nt read the comments, but yeh see what you mean!!!! How did the fox get baby out of the cot.
Would the doctors have confirmed it was a fox bite l wonder?
Interesting!!

jude x

I have no idea ! x

More and more urban dwellers are actively encouraging foxes, putting out food for them, putting up web cams and so on. What the heck do they expect ? The never ending BBC wildlife series have given people a somewhat rosy idea of wild animals though the recent Africa series had some welcome reality checks.

There needs to be a public information campaign that foxes are dangerous wild animals and NOT to be encouraged. Rubbish not secured or collected promptly does not help either. Apart from having a go at your mite's mits foxes are a disease vector, a walking flea zoo and the bite is serious 'cos of the inevitable infection.

If they get any further out of control a trapping / poisoning policy would affect many innocent wild urban animals as well as the not so innocent domestic cat.

Leave country matters to country people and then they will not intrude in to your urban sofa life style.

Do ye ken John Peel
with his coat so gay?
do ye ken John Peel
At the break of day?
Do ye ken John Peel
When he's far, far away
With his hounds and his horn
In the morning

Twas the sound of his horn
Brought me from my bed
And the cry of his hounds
Aas me oftimes led
For Peel's view holloa
Would awake the dead
Or a fox from his lair
In the morning

Do ye ken that hound
Whose voice is death?
Do ye ken her sons
Of peerless faith
Do ye ken that a fox
With his last breath
Cursed them all as he died
In the morning?

Yes, I ken John Peel
And auld Ruby, too
Ranter and Royal
And Bellman so true
From the drag to the chase,
From the chase to the view
From the view to the death
In the morning

And I've followed John Peel
Both often and far
O'er the rasper fence
And the gate and the bar
From Low Denton Holme
To the Scratchmere Scar
When we vied for the brush
In the morning

Then here's to John Peel
With my heart and soul
Come fill, fill to him
A brimming bowl
For we'll follow John Peel
Thro fair or thro foul
While we're waked by his horn
In the morning

I think some questions need to be asked before it's confirmed it was a fox. For example - Do the family have a pet dog? That would be my first question.

Edit-

I'm a country girl, Rollo. And totally anti-hunting.

I do find it disturbing that these cases are happening with urban foxes.

I have lived out in open countryside all my life, never known a fox to come indoors even though my back door is very often left open.

I live in a semi rural area....and I must admit I don't get any foxes at all in my garden......yukky rats occasionally but never foxes..so I can't judge from experience how likely it is to be accurate or not !

Some are very tame.

The local town had a problem a while ago (not sure what they did about it)
An acquaintance looked through the patio doors to see a fox watching her. No fear when she moved and stayed there for a few minutes before leisurely strolling off.

Secure wheelie bins might help to cut down available refuse to scavenge, but that isn't always practical in an urban area.

Guinevere, If you listen to the report it clearly states the mother saw the Fox with the babys hand down its throat and had to fight it off



Roy

I did listen to the report, Roy. I would like further investigation before I believe it to be true.

I live in the country and rarely ever see a fox.Never saw one here when I was growing up.We were told they would never cross the railway line.

They are about and will have your chickens if you don't secure them well but it is a lot easier to catch a discarded take-away.Just like many humans,they like the convenienceof town.

They only know food to be food and don't know that tender,juicy creature in the house is not for eating.

WE HAVE FOXES BUT ONLY NIGHT TIME,
AND DO THEY MAKE A NOISE GUT I HAVE
NEVER KNOWN THEM TO COME INDOORS
THEIR TO SCARED,AS FOR GOING UPSTAIRS,,,WELL !

44 YEARS AGO MY DAUGHTER WAS ASLEEP IN HER PRAM
UNDER IN THE SHOPPING TRAY WAS A FOX FAST ASLEEP,

Definately need some sort of cleaning up campaign and more information on foxes!!

Also more info to public about not feeding them and not leaving doors open etc

Very anti Fox Hunting too!!!!

A cull of some sort, but not by poisoning.

jude

If you go into the countryside and see a wild fox and stand still long enough the fox will approach you, I've had several encounter over the years but never been attacked but then again small babies probably look like a good meal to them

Roy

To many farmers, the red fox is craftiness & cunning personified. He is a stealer of little innocent lambs; a mass killer of fowl, a vagabond rogue & a thief. He also has a nasty habit of upending tidy rubbish bins in towns at the dead of night & shredding the plastic bags found inside, searching for any leftover food scraps. He accepts each gift with grasping enthusiasm.

But, according to some natural history programmes on TV, there is more to the fox than that. His amber eye is intelligent, his face keen, sense of smell acute & hearing highly tuned although his sight lets him down on occasions.

But what should we make of him? There are many who would kill him on sight. Fox hunting in the UK was banned in 2004, ending dark days of senseless savagery - a cruel sport indeed. Poisonous substances are plentiful & opportunities to use them equally so. Strychnine was once the poison of choice; now that this is no longer easily purchased other products, including livestock medicines, are used as alternatives.

Why? The traditional view of the fox as an enemy of the shepherd & the poultryman would appear to be the main reason.

Finally, a bit of trivia for you. A fox was recently shot dead on an Aberdeenshire farm after it was seen attacking lambs, weighed 38 lbs & was 4ft 9ins in length.

Enough of this 'Foxy Knoxy' stuff for now!

We don't see them here either and we're semi rural, surrounded by countryside.
Vic has seen one run up through the village years ago and we know they are in the fields cause Madoc comes home smelling:((((

jude

Many a time we have seen a couple walk past our house at night (late), they eat any food left out by a neighbour for the birds and don't even chase the cats that are usually around. We live on a suburban estate with countryside and a golf course (where they take cygnets) very close.

Like Gwynne, I'd like to hear a bit more. Some unanswered questions.

Why would anyone leave their back door open in February?

How did the fox drag the baby from the cot? It would be more reasonable to find the fox chewing the hand through the bars.

edit: Just read the DM report - back door was open as they were waiting for the council to come & repair it. They had a hope at gone 4pm!! Even if your door needs repairing - you find a way of blocking it.
DM also shows a video of a fox taking a dead pig from a pushchair. Pigs smell of pig - not human. Also the fox doesn't just grab it, it's very cagey about removing the pig - and it's outside, with no humans about, not upstairs in a house!!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2276187/Fox-bites-babys-finger-sleeps-Mother-fights-animal-bedroom-finding-month-olds-hand-halfway-throat.html?ICO=most_read_module#axzz2KV1GpETY

When my children were babies, we lived in a very rural area, with foxes about. In fact, I could smell fox just a few yards up the road from our house.(it's quite pungent - especially a male fox during the breeding season)
We also had our own ducks, that wandered around the garden - an obvious attraction to foxes. The children were regularly left in the garden in their prams, with just an insect net over them.
We never saw a fox in our garden.
We lost a few ducks - but know this was a 'two legged' fox. A much more sneaky creature!!

I was watching the discussion about this on Marr this morning. Of course, we are all rightfully shocked. But urban fox population is out of control. And, imho, the spread of urban foxes and doubling of dog numbers and (many of them being large, aggressive breeds or small "nippers") will result in this sort of incident becoming more and more common.

The Rev John Russell has suggested the solution. Save horses from the meat abattoir, dress men up in flamboyant and unusual clothes in bright colours, save all these nippy abandoned dogs from Battersea. And hunt these foxes down with a Sally Army bugle. :-S