Had a phone call last night from a distressed son and partner.  Their cat had been sitting on the back windowsill waiting to be let in.  Suddenly she made a real noise and disappeared from view.  On looking the poor thing had relieved herself with fright and may have been dragged from the windowsill.  She was found hiding behind a shed with all her claws broken and the pads damaged.  She had blood on her and on inspection the base of her tail was very painfull.  She was in shock all night but when I saw her tonight she seemed in less pain and was eating normally.
My question is (as theirs was to me) - how likely is it to have been a fox that attacked her?  I can understand an old cat - (when mine was supposedly killed by a fox she was suffering from dementia).   I have seen foxes in the garden on several occasions - in broad daylight too.   This cat is a young cat and has only been going outside for the last month since being neutered - she is one of a pair that they had from rescue as kittens.  It is quite likely that another cat thinks of the garden as their territory now since we moved out with Meg - but to attack like that does seem to be quite aggresive.  Anyone had experience of a fox attacking healthy cats?

Our neighbour once saw my cat being chased by a fox - the cat just managed to get home and in through the window in time. So if your son's cat had been caught unawares it's possible that it was attacked by a fox. It sounds very unlike a cat attack.

> all her claws broken and the pads damaged

This sounds more like an RTA but can't be if you are sure it was dragged off the windowsill .
Poor thing .

We have foxs and badgers visit our garden regular in the evenings.
Ive never seen them bother the cats in any way when the cats sit watching them.
Maybe it could have been a stray dog grabbed at their cat on the window sill.
Hope he recovers soon anyway.

Don't know but after a cat attacked my mum for no reason years ago I can see that an angry cat could do a lot of damage!  Hope it's not a fox though.

Yes it could very well have been a fox, I've seen it with my own eyes. 

My old tom cat, cock of the walk & quite the hardest Tom in the area was continually having run in's with a local fox.  Got to the point that he was going under GA once every two months to be stiched up, eventually almost lost him due to gangrene setting in.  One summers day, cat was asleep on the patio, I heard a scream and ran to the french doors and the fox had pounced on the sleeping cat.  Next door neighbours found 4 or 5 cat heads in their garden as well, they weren't the only people to find grizzely cat remains either.

We got a fox trap from the Urban Fox people, had to bait it for a week then set the trap - fox was taken away.  Another moved into the area immediately but this time there weren't any problems.

Ugh!  We were told that our cat had been beheaded by the fox all those years ago.  We didn't entirely believe him because a. he wasn't known to be very nice to animals and would have kicked out at our poor old cat given half a chance. b he had disposed of the body anyway saying well you didn't want it did you?!   He knew very well that it was our cat - she had been around for 13 years so he couldn't mistake it.  It was only when I stopped to ask him if he had seen my cat that he told me.   Son's cat seems to be OK now - she has gone out today - apparently there was some fur on the floor too. D-I-L heard foxes out there over the weekend. 

Sorry to hear about your son's cat ... I think regarding foxes it may be an individual fox thing as we have many cats around here including the kittens out and about, and quite a few urban foxes, but I've seen them in the garden at the same time and the foxes just continue with their business as do the cats. I have seen video footage of cats and foxes playing also! but perhaps invididual foxes and cats may scrap/attack...

Never, say never as others have witnessed such things, but I have many, many foxes where I live and never once have they gone for any of my cats, infact they've always been more afraid of them than us! :-) Cats are one of the most vicious preditors around, foxes know this, it takes a very brave or desperate one which I guess is not unheard of to take on a cat, usually only old or injured animals attract the brave.

Whatever went for the cat is definitely badly injured, if her claws are broken, if it was a fox you'll soon spot which one, and it would be mad to try again, so I would tell your son not to worry about a second attack, they don't enjoy fighting for their food, a fox may have mistook the cat for a squirrel sitting on the ledge? Or it may have been a different preditor all together. (Images of big wild cats)

However, I would hope any repeat attack is unlikely the cat gave whatever it was, what for.

The claws could have been broken as the cat desperately tried to grip the windowsill and scrabble against the wall as it was being pulled off.

Scuffed claws are a classic sign of rta as the cat tries to grip the road, not fight the car!

> Never, say never as others have witnessed such things, but I have many, many foxes where I live and never once have they gone for any of my cats, infact they've always been more afraid of them than us!  Cats are one of the most vicious preditors around, foxes know this, it takes a very brave or desperate one which I guess is not unheard of to take on a cat, usually only old or injured animals attract the brave.

I would agree with this, it would be a desperate fox that would attack a healthy cat.  Cats have a very effective set of weapons to hand (or more accurately to paw) that can cause significant damage to a fox.  Foxes will sometimes attack sick or old cats but are more likely to keep well clear of a healthy cat especially in urban areas where there are easier pickings to be found in bins etc. 

Urban foxes get much of their food by scavenging and they will take any dead animal they can carry which is apparently where a lot of the stories about foxes killing cats come from eg a cat gets killed by a car, a fox sees an easy meal someone sees it and assumes the fox has killed it.  One interesting fact is that cats are much more likely to kill a fox cub than a fox is likely to kill a cat.

It would seem town and urban foxes are both more aggressive and bolder than those still in the countryside where they still seem to live a more normal life.  It has been acknowledged that some town fox will attack not only cats and small dogs but have been found showing interest in babies too.

Don't know myself or if a study has been done into why so many are leaving their normal habitat for towns but it is thought to be because of the amount of edible rubbish in towns along with the fact that now hunting has stopped they are not moved on and so are able to multiply their number the surplus of which have no option but to move into human habituated areas in search of shelter and food. Would think in the near future a concerted culling effort will need to be made for the sake of the fox and humanity alike.

I very much doubt if there is any evidence of a fox attacking a baby.

I'm not sure urban foxes are more agressive, they may well be bolder as they see / deal with humans on a day to day basis and have probably learnt they have little to fear from them.

Culling is not really an option as studies have shown it doesn't work.  If you cull the foxes in an area foxes from outside the area will move in and take their place.  Foxes like many other animals will breed according to the situations they find themselves in so if there is little competition for food / space etc in an area the vixens will tend to have more cubs (or more cubs will survive) to fill the gap.  This will continue until the area can support no more foxes.  The best way to cut fox numbers is to deprive them of food and space, which is difficult.

>This will continue until the area can support no more foxes.  The best way to cut fox numbers is to deprive them of food and space

At which point they either start taking more risks, or meekly allow themselves to starve.

yes they do but it would eventually reduce the urban fox population which no other method has managed to do.  The problem is how do you deprive them of food and space in a this sort of environment?

Culling could in theory work if it was a continuous process but that costs money and as most people object to any increase in council tax or reduction in service it's unlikely to happen.  My own council stopped trying to control foxes about 10 years ago for 2 reasons: 1 it didn't work, 2 it was too expensive.

Culling in practise doesn't work because foxes are difficult to find and kill, putting poision down for them has a nasty side effecct of also posioning pets and other wildlife.  Other methods such as gasing don't work as they don't actually live in holes for most of the year and having people walking around the streets with guns trying to shoot them isn't politically acceptable.

Would think in the near future a concerted culling effort will need to be made for the sake of the fox and humanity alike.

You'll absolutely detest what I did not so long ago then. I often see foxes on my walks however when we had all that snow and cold weather not so long ago, I spotted a young fox hunting for food, it was so thin, it made me feel ill, (it may well have been ill itself) putting my tin hat on now for all the stones about to be thrown at me but I went home and took out a box of chicken wings throwing them in the bushes just by it's den, they were gone by the time we walked back.

I don't care, I can't watch anything starve!!!

Carrington you may have spared some poor little cat from being attaced by starving foxes.  My D-i-l took the cat to the vets today - she noticed the cat was doing a lot of licking and saw damage underneath the tail.  The vet said it was an abcess and that he had seen a lot of fox attacks on cats in recent times since the ban on hunting.   I told my d-i-law to make sure that she keeps her back door closed - my daughter knows from experience that foxes will walk in at any time of day.  Her first visit had the fox marking around the room and it took her leather belt.  The second visit had the fox walk into her living room as she sat there.  Oh yes they are getting bold.

Think it is another case of man changing the natural course of things, we no longer have any predators for the fox, not even us, so yes their numbers will continue growing and they will move into towns in larger numbers. And yes, there is at least one report of a fox attacking a baby.

>The problem is how do you deprive them of food and space in a this sort of environment?

You can't, because most people are too soft-hearted and impractical to allow it to happen. Their more concerned for the welfare of the individual than the welfare of the population as a whole. So using 'nature's methods' of population control won't work because of human interference making the situation worse, not better.

> there is at least one report of a fox attacking a baby

Yes just looked this up - it was in London in 2002.  One newspaper report said it was rare for a fox to go into a house.  Well my daughter was living in London in 2004 and it happened twice to her.  That isn't rare.  I have warned my D-i-l to keep her back door shut at least because of the baby who is only 6 weeks old.  Anyone know how to fox proof a garden??  I want to keep them out of our new garden when we move back because of the lungworm problem.

A goodly number suffer from Sarcoptic mange, Cheyletiellosis, Lung worm as well as the common flea, if you have dogs or children you should make every effort to keep them away from foxes and their environs.

A good fox deterrent was RENARDINE - but I'm pretty sure that I've read that it is not longer available - we had rags soaked in the stuff (smelled like creosote) around the edge of the chicken run and pheasant pens - it did seem to work pretty well.

Found a link to that Margot but it repels cats and dogs as well!  http://www.cat-repellant.info/html/renardine.htm 

The problem is how do you deprive them of food and space in a this sort of environment?

You can't, because most people are too soft-hearted and impractical to allow it to happen.

I would certainly be one of those, however even those of us with a soft heart, can't be stupid about these things. Having something starve to death I just could not turn the other cheek and allow it to happen. I disagreed with 'The Hunt' other family members enjoyed a good Fox hunt, me, no way, making a sport out of killing an animal in that way I can't agree with. I was pleased when it was abolished.

However shoots, not a problem, birds, game, they are not hounded with noise and hunted and having the fear of God put into them, one shot from a distance, with a little flushing from our dogs, they don't even know what is coming and they are dead. I have no problem with that.

When any animal like the fox becomes over populated (though do we even know this to be a fact as of yet?) causing a chain reaction of problems, from the mammal population being hit badly to our lives being invaded too often, it needs to be stopped somehow, I wouldn't be against a cull every now and again, I agree poisons can be hit and miss, but a well supervised shoot I don't have a problem with that at all if it is needed and only carried out by a certain body whom understand about foxes, which sexes, ages etc they need to reduce every so often. I wouldn't want a culling put into the hands of an open season and those who don't understand when, where or how.

Problem is Carrington having a shoot in urban areas like the one I live in is just not going to happen, it would be considered far to dangerous.

>Having something starve to death I just could not turn the other cheek and allow it to happen.

Nor me. I don't think long, slow, painful deaths are in any way acceptable - a quick end is the only humane way. But which?

Obviously you can't go around shooting in urban areas; poisoning is too random, gassing is impractical. Live-catch traps are probably best, with the captured fox then shot.

But would the Animal Rights (as opposed to Animal Welfare) bods allow it to happen?

Problem is Carrington having a shoot in urban areas like the one I live in is just not going to happen, it would be considered far to dangerous.

Very true, I'm as often happens just thinking of the area I live in, the suburbs and town areas I agree no-one can really be walking around with a shot gun. Traps I guess as JG has suggested would be an idea or even tranqualizers, that way they can have a good look at what they actually have before shooting, I think tagging foxes or fox watch too, would be a good idea if they should become over populated so that we can gage which sexes are being born, ages, how the population is growing, what they are dying of, carrying, I can't think of anything worse if random culling is done and if only a few females cubs were born and the adult females were just randomly taken out, leaving the fox on one of our 'in danger' lists. They too have a right to our planet.

If we have animal experts guiding us, even the Animal Rights brigade would have little to say about strategic culling. It is not just about human's but the whole knock on effect of smaller mammals, the Animal rights activists hopefully would understand this.

And the other issue of course in cost, I did a little digging last night as to the reasons my own council (Bexley) stopped trying to control foxes.  A lot of it was cost, but the other reason as I stated previously was that culling foxes didn't work, the population always increased to pretty much where it was before after the cull.

Restricting the supply of food in an area is not actually likely to cause any major suffering to foxes, in theory it will mean that less cubs are born as the foxes adjust their numbers to compensate.  Foxes do not rely on our rubbish outside of urban errors, and there is plenty of natural food in urban errors to keep them going, there would of course be some hunger (as opposed to starvation) which could lead to more attacks on small domestic pets in the short term.

It would be interesting to see what effect the recycling push has had on fox populations, in my area all kitchen waste is in theory now put into fox proof bins supplied by the council so there is now little point in foxes raiding bin bags etc which must have been a significant source of food in the past.

>there would of course be some hunger (as opposed to starvation) which could lead to more attacks on small domestic pets in the short term.

I think that would be of greater importance to pet owners, to be honest. The chance that their cat, or puppy, or rabbit would be more likely to be a fox's dinner would cause an outcry, especially as there's photographic evidence that more urban foxes are bold enough (and well-fed, judging by the photos!) to actually venture into people's houses now.

(Love the Freudian slip - "urban errors"! :-) :-))

The chance that their cat, or puppy, or rabbit would be more likely to be a fox's dinner would cause an outcry,

Yes, I agree I don't think that any of us would wish for our pets to become substitute meals to desperately hungry foxes and without a doubt that may well happen, I don't think the idea of sealing off human food sources would decrease the population, just make them look elsewhere and perhaps become more bold and aggressive hunters.  To be honest the reason we have urban foxes isn't necessarily due to our rubbish but because we have built our homes and roads on the land that they once hunted and roamed on, forcing them into a much smaller area. When parts of the countryside were taken away, the mammal, insect, bird population went down per square metre with it, so really in theory your idea of deminishing food supply should have cut down numbers then, but it didn't, they just changed tactics and encompassed our world into theirs, even though we are their greatest preditor.

They could not move out to more rural areas as they are already established by other foxes, if a fox has no territory it can not settle and mate, so obviously it will include our human world as part of that territory, therefore forcing them to come into our lives and live off our food, livestock and whatever else is on our land if they can.

As we are unlikely to knock down a load of houses and roads to give back the countryside, we are left with an abundance of foxes in our now territory. I don't actually believe the fox population is too high, just that our lifestyle doesn't accomodate them, they have never really had much in the way of preditors in this country.

I have just read an article that statistically we would need to cull two thirds of the population each year to keep the level to a proportion within the food chain as it is now. Maybe that is where culling has gone wrong in the past, it needs to be done yearly and needs someone assessing the situation constantly.

I don't actually think it should come under council ruling, too many men in suites who just want action and don't think properly. IMO it needs to stay with Animal experts and maybe we will need to pay a little each year to sort it out.  With a Population of 60,943,912 (July 2008) in the Uk, wouldn't even £1 a year cover it?

>As we are unlikely to knock down a load of houses and roads to give back the countryside, we are left with an abundance of foxes in our now territory. I don't actually believe the fox population is too high, just that our lifestyle doesn't accomodate them, they have never really had much in the way of preditors in this country.

I don't think the fox population in my town is too high either and judging by the complete lack of any people complaining about foxes in the local rags I suspect that most other people don't either.  The main complaint about foxes always seemed to be that they had a nasty habit of spreading the contents of bin bags everywhere, which is much less of an issue now the council have given us all wheelie bins.  To be honest I don't believe our lifestyle doesn't accomodate them, most people I know are quite happy to live and let live with foxes.  Oh and looking for the foxes is one of the highlights of the evening walk round the streets for both my daughter and the dog

To be honest shadbolts, I think this country is in far more danger from the increasing numbers of wild boar, the fox may indeed become a much needed friend in snatching the odd boar piglet, (if it gets the chance) foxes are shy and none confrontational whereas wild boar can cause us a lot of damage to property and to us if cornered and they are now back and breeding like.........pigs. :-D

> Would think in the near future a concerted culling effort will need to be made for the sake of the fox and humanity alike.
>
> You'll absolutely detest what I did not so long ago then. I often see foxes on my walks however when we had all that snow and cold weather not so long ago, I spotted a young fox hunting for food, it was so thin, it made me feel ill, (it may well have been ill itself) putting my tin hat on now for all the stones about to be thrown at me but I went home and took out a box of chicken wings throwing them in the bushes just by it's den, they were gone by the time we walked back.
>
> I don't care, I can't watch anything starve!!!

you live in a rural area though carrington, i think they were talking about urban foxes and the trouble they can cause

> Problem is Carrington having a shoot in urban areas like the one I live in is just not going to happen, it would be considered far to dangerous.

as i understand it if you have a hunt now a bird of prey is used for the actual kill? could you not similarly hunt them with a bird in urban areas? i know its done for pigeons on occassion.

i know nothing of the mechanics of this- i'm guessing sam would be the right person to comment?

When any animal like the fox becomes over populated (though do we even know this to be a fact as of yet?) causing a chain reaction of problems,

When I spoke to the Urban Fox Project, though they denied vigorously that what I'd seen with my own eyes was even possible, never mind probable; Even after showing them all my veterinary reports, clearly stating jaw size of bite etc.  They did admit that due to over population in urban areas, some foxes "might" start to display unusual behaviours.   Basically in some areas the terriorities are shrinking causing a sort of stir crazy mindset - combined with increase in confidence and opportunitism they conceeded that I "might" not have imagined it.