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Urban Foxes/Rural Legend

I'm sure we did this subject before but it was a while ago. (though there is a slight chance it was on another board entirely and I'm too old and decrepit to remember)
 
Urban Fox Dumping


What a good idea !

I've had many evil fantasies about urban foxes since one of the blighters ate Hester my (lovely, fluffy, clucky) pet chicken a year and a half ago, but this tops it !

Where can I hire a white or blue van ?
 
HAARP said:
Urban Fox Dumping


What a good idea !

I've had many evil fantasies about urban foxes since one of the blighters ate Hester my (lovely, fluffy, clucky) pet chicken a year and a half ago, but this tops it !

Where can I hire a white or blue van ?
Click to expand...

I'd have thought fox hunters would be rubbing their grubby little mits with glee at this one. The old controling their numbers argument would be vidicated (high migration rates where food is plentiful like chicken farms dose result in a population explosion)

Not that I am agaist controling fox rumbers of course, I think there are more humaine ways of doing this then ripping apart the nasty little desease vectors with dogs.
 
A freind who lives in a rural part of Scotland says that urban foxes are quite frequently dumped in her area - but only in ones or twos. So it's probably being done by lone animal lovers, perhaps bringing them in from English cities - Scotland has banned hunting. This kindness is misguided, as the urban foxes have no idea of how to look after themselves in the wild and are usually set upon by wild foxes who don't want them on their territories. So the ones that survive the wild foxes and the weather end up scavenging around houses, which leads to them being shot or poisoned.
 
I've got an article about this somewhere, but will probably take me a good few years to find it... if I remember rightly it's true... but obviously you never know, do you?
 
this one gets trotted out by fox killers all the time. Why would anyone transfer a fox liveing quite happily in a town to the countryside?... have u ever smelled one fox? let alone 40 in a van, trust me u wouldnt be able to drive for ur eyes watering... as for fox hunting "controling " foxes... why do they go round "cubbing" ? ie deliberately chaseing cubs about not to kill them but to spread them into new terortories... seems just to achive the oposite (and as 20% of foxes get run over every year they kill more in thier 4x4 than on horse back)


however in the 18th century they (fox hunts) did inport foxes as they so keenly "controled" foxes that not many were left. trapping them in unhunted places and letting the poor things go to be victimised. They even got em from France at some times!...

all this urban fox thing may come from spotting foxes suffering from mange...which all foxes do from time to time...
 
Myself and some friends had one of those drunken plotting evenings when we heard that fox hunting was to be banned. Figuring that there would be a lot of compensation being paid out to hunts that were being disbanded, decided on the following:

There are more foxes in urban areas than the country
Between the lot of us we have one dog that will chase anything: foxes; squirrels; crisp packets blown by the wind etc.
We all own at least one red shirt
We must form the Partick Hunt

We never did get round to doing this and as there was no compensation handed out it would have been pointless, but it would have been a laugh… especially if we could have attracted hunt saboteurs.
 
'...amzingly precise numbers of foxes...'
As opposed to what? 3.7?:D
 
the 'fox dumping' UL rides again

Hey folks, check out this story, courtesy of BBC news. The action has now moved to Wales:
Mr Nick Smyth of Pentre Bach, Llwyngwril, near Dolgellau, was so appalled at an incident he was told of that he wrote to his local newspaper.

"A van in a motorway car park was found by acquaintances of ours to be full of urban foxes," he said.

"When questioned, the driver stated that the animals were being taken to a remote part of the country, where no-one lived and no-one - in London presumably - had ever heard of, where he said they would do no harm.
Click to expand...
(bolding mine to emphasis its UL-ness)

Marvellous stuff. Michael Fabricant MP is going to write to Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett to ask what can be done. Might I suggest a subscription to FT - this was the subject of a Mythconceptions column, wasn't it?
 
Lots of foxes in one place means a fur farm.

But they would be silver foxes, wouldnt they? I assume there are still a few fox people around (most are mink) but I cannot imagine them bothering with common foxes....

Foxes dont attack cats (much) badgers/dogs/ABCS and thylacines do.

Unless the farmer was having a wind up this is a most perculiar case.

urban foxes are generaly sleek.

foxes bred for hunting (an odd tale in itself) would be healthy for a better run. (and a decent fox will take you all over the county)

I think its just a silly story
 
Urban foxes better fed than rural ones, populations much higher in towns,as food supply better.
 
foxes breed for hunting makes sense in a warped way although i suspect that it is more likely left undisturbed during breeding season to allow a new generation, hunters tend to conserve their prey as it is no fun when you have wiped them all out.
 
Urban foxes 'dumped' in Wales

Urban foxes 'dumped' in Wales

Urban foxes are being collected from towns and cities in England and dumped in rural Wales, an MP claims.
Lichfield MP Michael Fabricant claims the foxes - which have little fear of humans - then savage farm animals and pets.

"These misguided do-gooders have little perception of the damage they do to the livelihood and to the livestock which they slaughter," he said.

He plans to ask Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett what can be done.

The Conservative MP said he learned what was happening while in Snowdonia, north Wales.

"Nothing is more upsetting than seeing sheep bleeding to death after being savaged by these imported foxes," he said.

"Farmers tell me they are shooting and snaring an abnormal number of foxes in recent days."

Mr Nick Smyth of Pentre Bach, Llwyngwril, near Dolgellau, was so appalled at an incident he was told of that he wrote to his local newspaper.

"A van in a motorway car park was found by acquaintances of ours to be full of urban foxes," he said.

More foxes shot

"When questioned, the driver stated that the animals were being taken to a remote part of the country, where no-one lived and no-one - in London presumably - had ever heard of, where he said they would do no harm.

"The driver could not pronounce the name of our village."

Mr Smyth said that farmers had shot more foxes than usual recently - as many as 118 in three months.

"How would these people like to come down in the morning and find their pets in a bloody mess on their front lawns?" he asked.

"This situation is confronted by almost every stock farmer in the country at some time and, in this part of the world, very frequently.

"Somehow the ignorance of these town-dwellers and misguided do-gooders has got to be dispelled."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/3730976.stm

(Could this a recurrence of an urban myth? I remember FT debunking such reports in the past. pat)


:p
 
It could of course, be a foxes court.

Most unlike foxes, but Im sure there is a precident in the annals of natural history.

Ever read anything, anybody?
 
Hi

almost certainly urban myth

note they never get the number of the van the foxes are kept in.

also have you ever tried to get a van of foxes into a van from an urban location?

and who in urban areas would colelct that many foxes anyway.

no it's almost certainly an old story retold as a frightener in view of pending ban on fox hunting.

Mal F

(ain't seen any such vans round this part of rural wales anyway!!)
 
Has already been discussed elsewhere, this one seems to come up every year and is an urban myth.
 
Well, "Mr Nick Smyth of Pentre Bach, Llwyngwril, near Dolgellau" is a real person
I wonder if he'd tell us who his 'acquaintances' are, so we could ask them?
I wonder why the reporter didn't think of that?:rolleyes:
 
He might not be a real person. You'd be surprised (or not) how often local press invents 'people' for smaller reports.
 
How do you know they're urban foxes?

Do they were lots of gold jewelery, puffy jackets and say "Iz it cuz I izza fox?
 
taras said:
He might not be a real person. You'd be surprised (or not) how often local press invents 'people' for smaller reports.
Click to expand...
In that case, the real "Mr Nick Smyth of Pentre Bach, Llwyngwril, near Dolgellau" is going to be seriously pissed off ..
 
whizzer said:
In that case, the real "Mr Nick Smyth of Pentre Bach, Llwyngwril, near Dolgellau" is going to be seriously pissed off ..
Click to expand...

Check out the online phone book

N.D Smyth
Pentre Bach, Llwyngwril
Llwyngwril

i can even find a map to his house...
 
this is no true.... anyone who has smelled the wife of a fox den will realise a van full of foxes would very quickly become uninhabitable for the driver!.... the only proved importer of foxes have been...fox hunters!... its all about controlling foxes aparently :hmph:
 
Mr Smyth is real, as he was just interviewed on Radio 4 'You and yours'. Unfortunately the people who he claims saw the van, do not want to be identified.

Radio 4 did speak with a Prof. Steven Harris of a Bristol University who has been studying urban foxes for 25 years and who dismisses this as an urban myth, saying that his team has 40 traps and it takes them 80 to 100 days to catch one fox. Catching enough to fill a van would involve an even larger number of traps and would also require a place to hold the smelly, noisy animals.

Radio 4
 
I'd love to be able to run the headline "Fabricant makes up story" !
 
I've heard a similar story here in Sweden. A roumor in the nothern part of the country (very few people, lots of people dependet of reindeer and so on) that the state was breeding wolfes and releasing them into the wild (from their own cars!). It's a infected issue in Sweden since the people in the southern part wants wild wolfes, but the people up north (who's the ones actually living beside them) ain't so fond of the idea. This is an UL for sure, though.
 
Exactly how many wolves can you fit in a Volvo?

And do they have to wear seatbelts?
 
lutzman said:
Exactly how many wolves can you fit in a Volvo?

And do they have to wear seatbelts?
Click to expand...

In Sweden they would probably have to have up to date rabies and hardpad innoculations as well,as well as little sidelights on the tips of their ears,sorry Chigrima just a joke:D
 
River_Styx said:
How do you know they're urban foxes?

Do they were lots of gold jewelery, puffy jackets and say "Iz it cuz I izza fox?
Click to expand...


On radio 4 it said something about them being rakeish and showing no apparent fear of humans or other animals... that certinly sounds like a chav fox to me...
 
taras said:
Has already been discussed elsewhere, this one seems to come up every year and is an urban myth.
Click to expand...

Three threads on this merged - I kept taras' title.
 
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