Why shoot the foxes?

ianm said:

Rats do, i have always thought it a shame the authorities didn't put as much effort into developing a disease that wipes them out instead of the rabbit.

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JTO said:

Sounds like you shoot wood pigeons like other people shoot foxes.

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AlexD said:

Of course, if you keep chickens or pheasants, you need to eliminate foxes.

However, on arable farmland where I manage the wildlife, we had got to the point where there is a beautiful harmony with rabbits and mice kept down to numbers that do minimal crop damage because there is a rich array of predators: stoats, foxes, both barn and tawny owls, as well as buzzards and other birds of prey. Deer numbers have been brought down low enough that the trees surrounding the fields and the plants in the margins are their food, rather than the crop, whilst still giving new deer each year for the freezer. The bucks are all great, as the rifle does the genetic selection. It has become a wild life reserve, where the crop is untouched and all the mammals we have in the UK are in a harmonic balance: nature at its best.

Then someone comes along, unauthorised, on a motorbike with number plate obscured, with rifle exposed on his back, dressed in black, complete with balaclava, and shoots the vixens. So her cubs will starve, and rabbits will increase. The tool keeps on doing it, usually Saturday nights.

What is it about foxes that drive people to takes risks like this? Any ideas on how to prevent it?

NB: Police have been out a few times, farmland is easy to escape from. Residents now call me if they see things going on, but they are not out in the middle of night. They find the remains of the foxes the next day or so. I do a patrol at night, which helps in my mind, but I then go back to bed.

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Demetrius said:

Some people are simply not happy unless they're killing stuff, edible or otherwise...

D.

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jall55 said:

And others simply understand the NEED to protect ground nesters and a multitude of other species

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HonestJohn said:

In that case I’d heavily suggest banning the release of reared game and feeders/hoppers, because what you tend to see is an enormous population of rats around release pens and feeders, usually located in hedgerows, where they will happily feed on nests during the spring and summer when released birds are not fed

Many estates cause this issue, whilst arguing for fox control, whilst doing nothing to the rats they bring in. Which underpins the notion that the fox control in those situations is purely driven by financial motives rather than biodiversical

Contentious, I do realise

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Bo Diddley said:

No point in controlling anything if you have a weak link in the chain.
Rats, squirrels, mustelids, corvids, foxes.... then you might start seeing some improvement in ground nesters. We have a nice number of Grey partridges, all down to keeping the undesirables down.

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