an intresting fact, more foxes are killed on roads than by a hunt, the number the hunts actually get each year is very minible, nobody considered that when "banning" hunting the little critters
Actually I raised that precise point when debating the hunting ban before it was enacted. One of the pro-hunting arguments was that the fox population would "explode" if hunting was stopped. (Of course it was never made clear what "explode" actually meant.) My argument was that it doesn't make much of a difference to overall population how many foxes are killed (within quite a wide range) because it will recover to a level set by
ecological factors within a year or two anyway. In that respect, traditional hunting is rather ineffective - and, as you say, many more foxes are killed on our roads. However, culling may serve a useful purpose in some localities at certain times to get rid of occasional "rogue" foxes. On the other hand, in other places/times, killing foxes may actually
increase the number in an area because territorial ranges may be split and two foxes come to occupy the same area as previously occupied by one. As I recall, no one put forward any facts or arguments to contradict this.
In any case, surely it is obvious that hunts don't want fox numbers to decline - what they want is to maintain the status quo. Far from wanting to stamp out a pest, some hunts are known to have built artificial earths in order to
encourage foxes!
(I'm not particularly in favour of hunting myself, but I was dismayed at the sheer amount of time that was wasted on getting this legislation passed - and they still made a hash of it!)
we have lost too many lambs to these so called cute fluffy creatures for me to be too worried about them now we have to go and sit in the field every night with a gun do dont often get a clean shot. and please dont tell me that mr fox and his little family needed al 100 lambs he killed in 3 weeks!
I'm sorry you lost so many lambs. It sounds like you were unusually unlucky. What percentage of your crop does 100 lambs represent? It's known that foxes will take dead lambs, but of course there's no way of knowing exactly how many of the 100 were dead when they were taken. Have you considered getting a couple of guard llamas? (not joking)
im sorry that this is not what the op was asking but im getting fed up with people are all upset about these horrid creatures.
I don't consider foxes to be either "cute fluffy creatures" or "horrid". Both views put human characteristics on a non-human animal. As far as I am concerned, they are just part of Britain's wildlife.
which then appears to do nothing to regulate the fox population. It may way be illegal to hunt with the dogs, but if it's still legal to kill in other ways where is the incentive for any landowner to allow them to stay on the land? What is stopping them from being wiped out in other ways?
