Southern Wildlife Ambulance NetworkThe Fox Project
APRIL 2013
They’re not going to win an Oscar, but we’re raising film stars this year.
Amongst the first fox cubs of 2013 were two litters – The Piglets and The Bangers. Now, before anyone accuses us of insensitivity, there is absolutely no connection here between pigs and sausages. That’s just a coincidence.
Although The Bangers’ name did, indeed, derive from sausages, it was because they slept tightly together, side by side, and looked uncannily like a packet of those particular comestibles.
The Piglets, however,
came from St Swithins Road, and the venerable St Swithin just happened to be known in his day as ‘The Pig Man’.
Anyway, I’m sure you’re used to our tradition of naming the animals we admit into the hospital. Whilst amusing, it also serves a practical purpose in identifying casualties with something more memorable than a number.
So what of our budding Hollywood stars? What’s that about?
Well, this year we’re taking part in a research project with Bristol University. It’s
designed to look at the natural development of dominance and subordination in family groups of cubs.
That’s not easy to study in the wild prior to the point when cubs emerge above ground at four or five weeks of age. But in our essentially artificial system, groups like The Piglets can be observed, around-the-clock, with cameras set to catch every nuance of behaviour.
Given what Professor Stephen Harris and his colleagues at Bristol Uni have done for foxes over the years – particularly in
terms of showing science as reason enough to oppose bloodsports – we’re always happy to assist them with projects.
The Piglets were found with their dying mother, whom we suspect had been hit by a car. Sadly, she had to be euthanased on the spot and the cubs taken into care, all of which must have been distressing for the dog fox, who witnessed the loss of his entire family from a safe distance.
But we had no choice. The cubs were suckling infants, not even close to an age where the
JEAN LUC AND TIGGER TOO
No. 55
Newsletter
dog fox could take over feeding them with solids, and he could have done nothing for them.
The Bangers were abandoned and only saved when the occupants of an office broke through the ceiling to locate whatever was squeaking so desperately above their heads. They found five cold, hungry, scarcely more than new born male cubs, still with their umbilical cords attached. For the vixen, access to the void could only have been through a small hole in the eaves and while it was a shrewd place to have her cubs, one wonders if she was an inexperienced mother who had either left them too long or had failed to understand her responsibilities. It happens.
I think we may be excused for doubting the recent media coverage of a child supposedly attacked by a fox.
After all, it’s not as if we haven’t been here before: three times in eleven years to be precise. And as
Perhaps a similar misfortune befell Mitch, who wandered into a carpet warehouse on London’s Old Kent Road, far from anywhere a fox might call home. And Katy and Jean Luc were also found trotting the urban streets alone.
That, so far, is this season’s compliment of cubs – although it’s still early days and there are a couple of hundred to come – plus hundreds more adult foxes! But what about 2012? How would we sum that up?
Putting aside the 650 foxes we cared for during the period and the many thousands of folk we helped or advised on a variety of fox related issues from health care, behaviour, law, humane deterrence etc., 2012 will
information received after the event rendered the previous incidents more questionable than some of our media would have us believe, the words “Cry Wolf!” come to mind.
For instance, on the first occasion, police,
best be remembered for the move to Broadwater Forest Wildlife Hospital, which has provided us with the most modern and efficient facility we’ve ever had.
We were also able to upgrade both our ageing wildlife ambulances, thanks in no small measure to Jean Sainsbury Animal Welfare Trust as well as to
attending doctor, social services, near neighbours and the local publican all believed it was the family dog, and that was also the view of some journalists. Certainly, the family’s German Shepherd was never seen again following the ‘attack’. Unfortunately, newspaper editors defending their BIG STORY weren’t interested in shaking the real apples out of the tree.
Likewise, in the second incident, a dog that had pride of place on the father’s Facebook page was suddenly unavailable for comment and its photo mysteriously disappeared.
This time around, the family’s story changed daily from ‘the baby was upstairs’ to ‘the baby was downstairs’ and from ‘the
the generous donations of supporters like you.
At last, after 21 years of getting by, The Fox Project has reached a point where long-term sustainability is finally a reality. It’s no longer make-do-and-mend! No more living on a shoestring! You did that!
Thanks!
fox came through the front door’ to ‘the fox came through the back door’.
On a freezing night, the obvious question that should have been posed was why an outside door was open. You might, for instance, need to leave it open to allow the family dog in and out… if you had a dog… But the family said the door was missing because they had been waiting for the council to fix it.
Now, one would suppose, with a vulnerable baby in the house in sub-zero conditions, the least one might do as a temporary measure would be to tack a piece of hardboard over the gap. What gap? When approached, the council produced confirmation the door had been fixed
CRYING WOLF
continued from front page…
three weeks before the alleged incident!
Naturally, the cheap end of the press, led, unsurprisingly, by the Daily Mail, made the story headline news, unquestioningly printing the views of those who supported the story and either omitting to print or selectively editing alternative explanations. The Fox Project, for instance, took part in 90 interviews and was quoted fewer than ten times. Free press? Yes, free to ignore what doesn’t fit their agenda.
The Mail, of course, supports the pro-bloodsports lobby and takes every opportunity to blacken the name of the fox because, regardless of the urban nature of the stories, anti-fox sentiment from any quarter could increase support for repeal of the Hunting Act 2004.
Repeal is necessary, they say, because fox numbers have got out of control since hunting was banned. While that’s not remotely true, the claim falls easily on gullible ears. And the folk who own those ears seem not to have spotted these ‘fox attacks’ occurred in urban Hackney, Catford and Dartford where foxhunting hasn’t taken place since Charles Dickens was a boy!
Barely had the Catford incident hit the fan than a woman was reported bitten on her Ugg Boot by a fox she had inadvertently trapped on a stairwell.
And this was followed by photos in the papers of a fox approaching a pram with a toddler in it. It was both photographed and
filmed but, strangely, the moment of any actual or threatened attack was not captured and neither was any attempt made to unstrap the child and move it out of harm’s way.
That’s probably because the baby was never in harm’s way. Perhaps the supermarket carrier bag on the baby’s lap was what interested the fox – the smell of food, maybe? And given the lack of panic, we’d suggest the child’s parents were familiar enough with the animal to feel safe in its presence. Might the contents of that carrier bag be a clue?
Of course, where you’re not safe is in the presence of a professional photographer who happens to work for both the pro-hunt Telegraph and Mail and who was fortunate enough to be on hand with a battery of photographic equipment just as the fox approached the baby/pram/carrier bag. It’s almost as if it was planned…
And they might have got away with it, too, if the photographer had only
remembered to hide his identity when the photos were published!
Another interesting fox ‘attack’, a year ago, involved a man whose bread was snatched from the carrier bag he was holding. So that’s three ‘attacks’ in just twelve months; one on an Ugg Boot, one on a French loaf and the other on a baby. We’re prepared to concede the first two might be true.
One supposes the Scottish postman who suffered severe injuries from a dog attack on the same day as the Catford incident
doesn’t mind that his story, and those of 200,000 other people hospitalised each year with domestic dog bites (including two or three fatalities - usually children) are ignored in favour of a devious political campaign to bring back
foxhunting on the basis of
one dubious incident.
The call for a fox ‘cull’
from London Mayor, Boris
Johnson, should be seen
for what it is – another in a
long line of empty, crowd-
pleasing platititudes.
Culls don’t work on self-
regulating species. Even if
they did, who would pay
for it? George Osbourne
would have a hard job
convincing nurses to
accept pay cuts while he
finds money for foxhunters.
Local authorities? Cash
strapped - and how would
they justify closing libraries
and crèches to support
a pest control operation
even pest controllers say
is pointless?
Because, for once, animal
welfare groups, scientists,
pest controllers and DEFRA
are all agreed. Culling
foxes doesn’t work. If it
did, then foxhunters would
have made themselves
redundant generations
ago and their repugnant
and unnatural behaviour
wouldn’t have needed
regulating. It would have
died out naturally.
Returning to the Daily Mail,
whose primary role seems
to be to make us scared
of our own shadows; the
paper led us towards the
New Year with warnings
about the Doomsday
Prophecy.
The 5000 year old Mayan
calendar ended in
December 2012. This was
probably just down to the
Mayans running short off
papyrus, but it was taken
by certain end-of-the-
world enthusiasts to mean
this was it!
Depending on your
particular persuasion, we
were all going to die in a
vast solar storm; a black
hole would swallow us up;
or we’d meet our end by
comet or the eruption of a
super-volcano.
The Mail was dismissive of
these notions, warning us
instead that the world’s
population would be
decimated by a deadly
plague carried by foxes.
To support this theory
they quoted scientist
Vivienne Parry, whom they
triumphantly lauded as “a
former presenter of TV’s
“Tomorrow’s World”. What
they omitted to tell us was
that Ms Parry’s career
takes a more lowly path
today in that she works for
the Mail on Sunday...
This newsletter is dedicated to the memory of
Brian Emmett.
Brian and his wife, Marilyn, were volunteers with
The Fox Project for a number of years, fostering
and releasing rehabbed cubs on to their West
Sussex farm and putting the lie to the hunt
fraternity’s assertion that wildlife is the natural
enemy of the farming community.
Marilyn says Brian was always going to be a
farmer, “He first drove a tractor when he was four
years old! But his father put a stop to that when
he found little Brian getting off to make some
adjustments to the machinery on
the back!”
A quiet, gentle man with a passion for sailing, Brian
died from motor neurone disease on the couple’s
42nd wedding anniversary. He was 66 years old
and Marilyn was at his side when he slipped away
whilst watching TV. He will be sadly missed and our
thoughts are with Marilyn, friends and family.
DOOMSDAY
Brian Emmett
Ha Ha Ha! The Daily Mail
said what?
Order form overleaf
Natural Cotton Tote Bag
Fox Print Mirror
Zipper Pull (cream, blue, green or tan)
Unearthing the Urban Fox (by Trevor Williams and John Bryant)
COME AND SEE FOR YOURSELFThere are many ways to support The Fox Project. We carry a small range of constantly changing sales items and this time we’ve got mini-mirrors and foxy zipper pulls for your handbags, plus notelets, tote bags and t-shirts for all.
And if you want to get directly involved, how about booking a Day Out? £50 will buy you the co-driver seat for a day in one of our ambulances although, for insurance purposes, you need to be over 16 years of age. The day starts at 9.00am sharp and you’ll go where the ambulance goes and get involved as much as you wish with whatever your driver does. That could involve working in the hospital unit, assisting with treatments, bottle-feeding cubs, helping out with rescues, etc.
Every day is an adventure at The Fox Project and what happens, happens! Little ever goes to plan
because the telephone dictates everything and every day is dependent on circumstance! If you want to get involved, be quick! The scheme only operates until the end of June, after which we avoid unnecessary human contact with cubs in order to maximise the chances of getting them back to the wild – as properly wild animals.
If all that sounds a bit strenuous or stressful, take out a Cub Adoption instead. That way you can sit back in your comfy chair and watch your adopted animals grow and develop at a distance. For £20, you – or a friend, should you choose to give an adoption as a gift – will receive four personalised certificates covered with photos and detailing the progress of three designated cubs and an adult casualty for the period between admission and re-release back into the wild.
If speeding ambulances or easy chairs don’t satisfy your soul, then maybe heading down to East Sussex to bop ‘til you drop is more your style?
We’ve been running “Rock with the Foxes” for several years and each event is bigger and better than the last. This year it’s on Saturday 20 July near Herstmonceux, East Sussex and will feature The Ian Shawcross Band in the evening, acoustic acts during the afternoon and a through-the-night disco for those with sufficient stamina. An excellent vegan barbecue comes as part of the £18 advance ticket price – call 01323 833519 to book – and other edible and drinkable goodies are available along with sales stalls, overnight camping and parking facilities, plus a fry-up breakfast for the terminally bleary!
Price Item Qty Total £9.00 Fox Project T-Shirt - state size S, M, L, XL or XXL X £4.75 Natural Cotton Tote Bag X X £4.95 Pack of Five Notelets X X £2.95 Zipper Pulls (cream, blue, green or tan) X
Sales items
Adoptions @ £20.00
Day Out @ £50.00
Donation
TOTAL
Size Colour
£7.95 Unearthing the Urban Fox (by Trevor Williams and John Bryant) X X £3.50 Fox Print Mini-Mirror X X
