Leave Those Foxes Alone

It’s that time of the month again. Foxes, our poor benighted urban neighbours, are getting it in the neck from no less a personage than Ian Wright, yes, him out of that Arsenal.

In the Evening Standard this week Wright has been complaining that important and rich people like himself should not have to live side by side with nature and that local foxes should be obliterated, followed no doubt by the birds from the sky and moles from the earth.

We hear from the Wright household that  “It is pretty frightening. [Two year old] Lola loves playing in the garden and we can’t now leave her in there just to run about. We have put netting up so it stops them getting in. It is frightening because we have a little girl and we hear stories about them coming and attacking kids.”

They hear stories, which may be untrue but frighten them none the less and so we must purge these wild fiends before they finally seize power and increase the congestion charge.

It must be a rather pathetic existence that for all his millions, and memory of a rather splendid football career, he  is collapsing into a quivering neurotic heap at the idea of putting up a net. So deep and black is his dark night of the soul that he fears unseen creatures behind every corner, lurking in every garden, waiting to pounce on his unattended two year old child at any time of day or night.

Lock him up!

Some commenters on the article thought that Wright should be prosecuted for leaving his two year old alone at all, which seems a bit harsh when the Prime Minister leaves his kids in the pub. I’m not quite ready to have the thought police sent round just yet, but I would suggest that he a) gets a sense of proportion and b) gets over himself a little, all this special pleading is a bit naff.

I would ask him though if he prefers rats. If not he might like to consider what might happen if their only city living predator is wiped out. Foxes eat insects, left over kebabs and rats by and large, as such they are not simply part of our natural environment they also perform a social good through their diet, as anyone who has come across their noxious “leavings” can guess at.

In praise of Mr Fox

As Stephen Harris arges in the Guardian, foxes get coverage for the most minor incident (or even fear that an incident might happen as in this case) while stray cats and dogs cause far greater problems every day and we yet heard nothing of it becase they don’t fit the media’s agenda.

He says “The first claim that foxes will kill a baby appeared in the Sunday Times in 1973: 40 years on, this still has not happened… Yet despite the subsequent 15 years of press hype, the vast majority of British people still like foxes, particularly urban foxes. The anti-fox campaign hasn’t worked, and it’s time to return to more factual, and balanced, reporting.”

But while the anti-fox, pro-rat campaign continues there are other views. Chris Packham thinks cats are the main problem but no one seems to suggest culling the, thank goodness.

Big Smoke is under no illusions that foxes never kill anything but really, let’s remember that, like us, they are one part of our urban eco-system – not devils, not ravaging monsters – and the reality has more in common with crows and badgers than the silly myths that have built up around them.