Anyone else watching this?

I actually feel sorry for the foxes. Do-gooders are encouraging them - for them to be trapped, and shot in the end.

> Do-gooders are encouraging them

I only have to look out of my bedroom window about 11pm to see my neighbour feeding anything up to about 10 foxes each night :( :( :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Daisy

Why don't they just get a dog! I don't get it - look at these pair on here now getting all excited about the return of one who was recently knocked over. Had they not been humanising them - they wouldn't be getting brave and getting knocked over

They've got dogs :) :)

Daisy

Yes just watched it. Couldnt watch it in places. hated it when the two foxes got shot at the end.I found it so sad as the female was expecting cubs.They have a hard time of it really just existing, I felt sorry for them too.

I didn't feel sorry for the foxes.  I felt sorry for the chickens. I thought the marksman was very professional and it was better the vixen was shot pregnant than if she'd been shot with a litter waiting for her to return with food.

The reason there are so many foxes is because food is plentiful thanks to people.  Normal cycle of life is that food source dictates numbers of an animals but as the foxes don't have to hunt for their food they just keep increasing in numbers.

I just wish they didn't keep dumping live ones a few miles away from London

I also felt sorry for the chickens. I felt sorry for the foxes in that humans are the ones who are causing them to become braver, giving them food and making it an ideal environment to multiply - did you see how fat some of those foxes were!!? They are killing them with kindness. And I hate foxes!

People have to remember that any interference no matter how well intentioned can have a serious impact on wildlife.

Also a balance has to be struck in giving help where mans actions have caused a problem (so giving over ares in gardens and fields for wildlife habitat, and the danger of just making formerly wild animals dependent or at worse pests.

For example feeding the birds done responsibly (preferably by planting food plants etc, is not the same as feeding pigeons in town centres.

I keep poultry too, and lost the loveliest duck last year to the fox. I was absolutely heartbroken.Cant bear for anything to lose its life, its very sad.But the foxes last night were just trying to survive in an alien terrain. I felt sorry for the chickens also,they must have been terrified.Sad all round.

Did you see the footage where the fox had the chicken out on the lawn? That was awful - and inevitable. You could see the chicken had no chance and the fox couldn't believe its luck. Awful how it took all the heads off too. When it got in the coop too - that was so sad :(

Yes saw that....that was awful,she put up such a fight. It was sad when it killed all the chickens, but the pen looked flimsy,considering he had already lost some to foxes. I would have made it alot stronger than that,or not kept them at all.

About a week ago, I heard the loudest screaming out in my garden, and went out to look.My cat was on the garden bench, and five yards from him was a fox making the noise. He did clear off into the horse field,and then came to come back. Googled fox sounds[as you do] and it said that the screech meant, 'this is my territory'.They are pretty fearless, I have had one at 11.30am on a Sunday morning,ambling up my garden, heading for the patio.The remaining male duck was shouting his head off which made me look,and thankfully frighten him off.It is a gamble keeping poultry and quite upsetting when you loose them.I think when my last remaining chicken and duck have gone,then I wont have anymore.

The Chicken owners I could have throttled. Who keeps Chickens in a substandard pen knowning the foxes are coming in and slaughtering them. They are basically providing the foxes a fun evening. They should have been told off. A sustantial pen something like a dog run that had steel bar construction would have kept the foxes out.

I felt a bit sorry for the one that was caught and left sitting in the rain, it's little face :-) I would have covered it. :-)

Totally agree, flimsy chicken wiredoes exactly what it says on the tin....keeps chickens in, and thats about it.

Yep - I agree.

And did anyone else think the next door neighbour was a bit weird too - saying he enjoyed the foxes mating calls?!

Am glad I live in the country. I'd rather have the foxes than the neighbours!

LOL I was laughing at the neighbour also. He said we should all be like that.  1 hour long matings :-)

Werido with he died black hair ;-)

Don't think I would like chickens next to me neither though.

I still think the chicken owners with that set up were not silly but stupid.

> I still think the chicken owners with that set up were not silly but stupid

But a lot of people like their chickens to run freely in their garden/yard during the day :) Neighbours across the road keep chickens in the front garden ( ). While the mother was gardening, one day, a fox grabbed one only about 10 foot from where she was kneeling, weeding the flower bed They are quite secure when shut in at night :(

Daisy

My chickens are free range round the fields - but they tend to stay close to the house and are locked in early evening. The cockerel is a good deterrent too. We also have Pheasant breeding neighbours so the fox doesn't last long around here.

> We also have Pheasant breeding neighbours

We have pheasants in the garden - will that deter foxes ?? ;) ;) ;)

Daisy

Only if they're guarded by people with shotguns! ;) :D

:D :D ;)

:D

Running free is fine I guess during the day when some could watch them :-) but leaving them in the silly enclosure ( if you want to call it that) at night time was doing nothing but asking for it, I am suprised the cats have attacked them either. :-( very very irresponsible.

They should have been securely locked up at night. Not put on a plate for the foxes and they moan about it the next day.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

I agree with you there. They'd only just been and bought some new ones as well!

Surely suitable living quarters also limit fox numbers, and parasites, and available territory. Food availability isn't the only limiting factor to population numbers.

Didn't see all the programme but I thought the ending was awful and I found it hard to get it out of my mind.  Yes it was terrible when the chickens were attacked but this is what foxes do and the chicken owner certainly hadn't build a sufficiently strong home for them IMO.  To deliberately entice wild animals into your garden by regularly feeding them just so you can shoot them for revenge I found sickening. :( :(

It's not just chickens, pet rabbits and guinea pigs and even cats fall prey to them.  They do not belong in suburbia.

>To deliberately entice wild animals into your garden by regularly feeding them just so you can shoot them for revenge I found sickening.

I think discribing it as revenge is rather emotive language, I think most people would call it control and baiting is an obvious tool to use.

What I found most disturbing was the loose chicken, caught on camera - when the fox had it. That was taken in the dark - so why was the hen outside? Was it just for filming purposes? I thought that was awful :(

What I found encouraging was how quickly the foxes were despatched by the gun - it was over immediately. Far better than trapping them. The one stuck in the cage, soaking wet, being gawped at by humans was pitiful.

Ditto  ditto and ditto Carla. :-)  The marksman obviously knew the right spot to shoot them at. 

The little one in the cage was petrified. Whatever the animal I don't like to see fear on their faces.

The chicken owner got right up my nose ( Can you tell :-D)   He was on a war path , one that was completely unnecessary I think. 

I think the foxes need to be removed but he ( the chicken owner)  was responsible for them being there and their ultimate death.

He was told by the fox expert that killing them would just bring more then seemed genuinly suprized when that was the case :rolleyes:

What I found disturbing was that people think feeding wild animals cakes is treating them.  More disturbring was the mange that the foxes can carry to your pets and the number of children that had been bitten.  Let's hope above all hopes that we can keep rabies at bay in this country or else foxy all over the country will be at risk from the shotgun.

My farrier told me he shot one that had been spayed once. Removed from the town, spayed, and released in the country!

Now neutering would make sense if released back to their home territory like with feral cats, but take them to the country???

>but take them to the country???

They probably did and it hopped on the next bus back to suburbia in time for the closing time rush at McDonalds :)

OH told me years ago about how the London foxes were caught and released in  Bedfordshire and I thought he was gullible to believe such stories   More fool me :P

Ironically, the foxes are probably in more danger of being shot in the country so asking for them to be caught and released unharmed seems daft.

'What I found encouraging was how quickly the foxes were despatched by the gun - it was over immediately.'

Mmmm..........that's for the lucky ones which I suggest are probably in the minority.  As Danny posts below, in my experience that is by far more the common outcome.

I can just see the hunting ban being over turned :-D

You might think 'revenge' emotive language Isabel, but that was clearly what was involved here IMO. :(

Revenge suggests punishment to me but the total lack of any suffering in their dispatch suggests not.

Revenge suggests punishment to me but the total lack of any suffering in their dispatch suggests not

So being shot isn't being made to suffer ?  I believe any kind of death is painful :(  :(
Of course it was revenge - from where I was sitting anyway!

Well if any kind of death is painful lets say the marksman saved these two foxes from the even more painful one nature had in store for them ie old age and starvation when hunting becomes too difficult and it was certainly quicker and easier than the chickens.
You are entitled to your opinion of course but I must say it is an unusual one I can't recall even the most avid antihunting groups ever using the term "revenge killing".

Well if any kind of death is painful lets say the marksman saved these two foxes from the even more painful one nature had in store for them ie old age and starvation when hunting becomes too difficult and it was certainly quicker and easier than the chickens.

Maybe, who knows?   But I'd prefer natual causes rather than being shot - maybe I'm a minority but wouldn't have thought so

For wild animals 'natural causes' are starvation, predation, disease or being hit by a vehicle.

Thing is it is debatable whether the foxes have moved in, or we have moved into their territory.

I don't think that, in the case of this particular animal at least, it is a question of loss of natural habitat to human habitation.  I think they are choosing this environment because the pickings are easier than their original hunting grounds.  I think there is still plenty of that previous habitat and still plenty of rabbits and other small creatures it is just easier for them in suburbia particularly when dinner is actually served up to them!

Did you see the couple who put food out and filmed the foxes - then sat and watched them the next morning on TV?

Some folk need to get out more IMO! If I lived next door I'd be employing the marksman to shoot the neighbours :rolleyes:

I see fox no better than man.

Both kill indiscriminantely but in the case of the fox sometimes it'll eat what it kills.  Yesterday in Virginia makes the fox seem a reasonable creature compared to us.

I was very sad to see the foxes shot, I had tears down my face !!  I live in the country surrounded by foxes and I love them. I had a vixen who raised cubs in our paddock for 6 years. Some idiot shot her through the shoulder, not killing her. The blood trail marks suggested she dragged herself almost a a quarter of a mile home only to die just inside the entrance to her den. She was also close to birth, her babies died inside her. We miss seeing her as she was very inquisitive about us and our animals. She never once took a chicken, she appeared to live on bunnies.

That man on TV that arranged the shooting , no doubt was responsible for the increase in rats in that area. Normally where there is chickens, horses, cattle etc there are rats living off the feed. His chickens were poorly housed and the wire was not secure enough to keep out a fox, so he responsible for the safety of his birds.   It is a well known fact that a fox will kill as many birds in one go, but if left alone will eventually return to collect every carcass as he will store away for harder times.

Everyone at my work saw this and we were all deeply saddened that the two foxes were shot,my bosses,who have several acres of land said that they have a family of foxes,who, in six years have only ever got one chicken,due to the coop being not strong enough,this now has a metal grid in the earth to stop any fox burrowing under.They are happy they keep the rabbits down.They have managed to live alongside the foxes and I dont understand why everyone else cant either.I used to live in london,we had foxes in the back garde,apart from the noise,they did not worry us.
I actually do not believe that quote'hundreds of children have been bitten by foxes'.

To think they only live on average for 15 months in the city is awful,so,do we really need to shoot them?
The saddest thing for me,(apart from the shooting) was seeing the two foxes together,on an estate,surrounded by wailing police sirens,playing with a plastic bag,they were so innocent of all the danger around them,and so out of place and time.