Wildlife Killed In The Hundreds in One City -Who Cares?

 I have just completed a 59pp document that combines the 2022-(Feb) 2025 Fox and Badger deaths registers. It is grim reading.

Well over 600 foxes and over 150 badgers and, as I keep saying, these are only the reported deaths. You could probably double both totals.

In the last week Sarah Mills (Bristol Wildlife Rescue) had call outs to three RTA vixens who were aborting still born cubs.  There was also a heavily pregnant sow boar.

The persistence of local authorities to not put in place road under./overpasses for wildlife or speed bumps on the worse roads (where evening and night time "racers" kill a lot of wildlife) really shows the lack of intertest and concern.  "We have no budget for this" is always the response while always calling out what "champions for the environment and re-wilding" they are.

It has to change because we are losing too much wildlife -foxes, badgers, deer, otters, hedgehogs and more.

What Size Was the Old British Mountain Fox and How Rugged Was It?

 

Above: An adult coyote taxidermy placed in front of what John Colquhoun called a "good specimen Mountain fox" -note that the coyote is actually raised up so that it could be compared next to the fox which is much bigger. (c)2025 Extinct Fox and Wild Cats Museum

Re the Old foxes. We know that they were greater in size than a red fox. We know they had longer legs and if a red fox can jumped onto a 6ft (1.8288) high fence/wall then a Mountain fox would have no problem.

Studying anatomy you need at least 2-3 good examples of Old foxes to compare them and I believe that we have the have the Colquhoun mountain fox and two others (sex undetermined as taxidermy makes it difficult and these are scientifically important so nothing that could be destructive to the taxidermy is undertaken). Comparing the three (at least) in the collection would show their size and an expert can do the math from that. Hunt chases of these foxes recorded them being chased until killed or lost sight of for one or more hours over rugged terrain and from, 2-20+ miles. The Mountain fox was also big enough to try to fight off the hounds which was what hunters looked forward to -"in at the kill".

The heaviest fox we have had for the first necropsy study of British foxes was 8kgs. We know that the Colquhoun fox was larger than the coyote and an adult coyote can weigh 11-15kg (25-35 lbs dependent on sex etc). or: "Coyotes are significantly smaller than wolves. Their bodies are typically up to 1.3 metres (4.26 feet) long, standing approximately 60 centimetres (2 feet) tall. A coyote can weigh 9 to 23 kilograms (20-50 pounds), but it depends on where they're found and the abundance of available prey"

It is safe to say that the Mountain fox would be tough and rugged but stories from hunters about their abilities need to be taken with a bag of salt. We know that various authors claimed cubs were "corn in the stubble" or above ground but evidence seems to show that any safe location within a territory would have been used.

Hill foxes obviously chose crevices, caves and anywhere that was safe and sheltered. There are even photographs of coastal foxes amongst cliffs.

When hunters realised that the Old foxes were becoming extinct -and they knew and wrote about this from the 18th century on- the importations began. We know for a fact that an Old type fox was imported from Norway as there are contemporary news and articles about this. The Norwegian Mountain fox was praised for being possibly even larger and stronger than the Old British fox. Hunting in the UK did not just killed off the Old British foxes seems to have (through trapping and importing from Norway) killed off the last of the Old Western European fox.

When importing from Europe was insufficient the hunt members did what was the thing back in the 19th century; attempted cross-breeding of wolves/jackals/coyotes and so on (everything from game birds, fish etc had some hunt/naturalist working to create the perfect hybrid to hunt, kill and then display). Since the old colonial hunts and "holiday hunts" to Europe and the United States gave the hunting fraternity the "taste" for hunting large wild canids -in the 1800s the then Duke of Beaufort loved wolf hunting in France and was even a guest at a Welsh Hunts anniversary wolf hunt in North Wales.

The taxidermies of wolf, jackal and coyote masks (heads) are now recorded in photo archives.

All of this to replace what was the key wild canid which was not a rampaging carnivore but seemingly an omnivore like other wild canids. Extinction likely came in the 1860s at around the time other native species such as wild cats, squirrels, etc. Naturalists main interest was finding out things that helped hunt species.

Much of what we know can often be slanted in favour of "a reason to hunt" (one was never needed) but it is interesting that the age old myth of sheep killing foxes was laughed at by over 95% of hunters (who were also country squires, farmers etc) and that a reward from the 1800s offered to anyone who could prove foxes killed and carried off sheep was never claimed.

It has taken almost 50 years to throw aside the false 'history of British foxes' which has become accepted dogma and get to the true history of British foxes that was simply thrown aside after the 1890s for reasons long since forgotten.

The only thing we have failed to achieve is have the taxidermies of Old foxes and wild cats DNA tested as that could answer many questions but, sadly, we certainly cannot afford such work and no university or lab in the UK has shown the slightest interest. DNA testing would be the ultimate piece of evidence.

What Was The Diet of the British Mountain Fox?

 

I would GUESS that a pair of Old British foxes would look after young until dispersal but that sort of thing was never noted in anything other than New foxes.

Prey would have been the usual: mountain hares have been present in the UK for a very long time and in Devon and the Thames Valley areas bones were found and dated as between 114,000 and 131,000 years old.

Mountain Hare (c) By H. Zell - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8448452

Brown hares (Lepus europaeus) it is thought were likely introduced to the UK in the Iron Age or Roman times. However, it would be impossible to tell for sure since we know that trade ships from many countries visited the UK regularly and while exotic animals given as gifts such as domesticated North African wild cats and even "Barbary apes", there is no reason why hare or even rabbits might not have been traded.

Brown hare (c) the Mammal Society

Officially (which means that no one knows for sure but some academic decided "this is when" and so it was accepted for convenience) rabbits were not introduced to the UK until after the Norman Conquest in the 12th century. However, very few people know that rabbits were brought here during the Iron Age after the Roman conquest (AD 43-84) which means that rather than 1000+ years rabbits have been in the UK for 2000+ years (again, excluding the possibility of rabbits being brought over before the Romans as trade animals -easy to keep, feed and breeding meant they were a handy food source.

The earliest records show that the western European house mouse was present during the late Bronze Age and would have arrived here via trading ships from Europe which were common.

©Black Rat - British Wildlife Centre

Brown rat © Heiko Kiera/Shutterstock.com

I have little doubt that rats may have also made in to the UK before the official dates; the Black rat supposedly reached Britain (again) on trade ships in Roman times, having spread originally from India. They flourished until the introduction of brown rats in the 1700s which gradually displaced them and numbers declined.

Red squirrel (c) By Peter Trimming - https://www.flickr.com/photos/peter-trimming/6583159839/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29980115

Added to the diet list of the Old fox were squirrels and I have no doubt birds of various sizes since New foxes take seagulls (if lucky) and definitely pigeons. Ducks, geese, etc. etc. etc.. and then there were the usual reptiles and amphibians and wild fruit, etc..

This means that the diet of the Old foxes was a varied diet -we know coastal foxes with scour beaches for fish washed up and crabs. Foxes will also actively "fish" in ponds and streams.

Fox with a fish (c)Arko Vision

Anything edible in swamps, marshland, forests and woodland, hills and mountain areas. If it could chase and catch it then it was food and the Mountain fox was not also known as the "Greyhound fox" for nothing.

We can guess a lot about their diets

Bristol Fox Deaths Project 2021 -2024

 

Pages   231

Binding Type   Paperback Perfect Bound

Interior Color   Color

Dimensions   A4

£25.00

https://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper/bristol-fox-deaths-project-2021-2024/paperback/product-w4rp2zp.html?page=1&pageSize=4

In 2020 the British Fox and Wild Canids Study (f 1976) decided that the number of suspected

fox poisoning cases in the City of Bristol needed to be properly investigated. The attitude of "just foxes" had prevailed for too long and the number of deaths reported were either deliberate poisoning or indicators of some form of disease in foxes.

Necropsies (post mortems) were carried out at Langford Veterinary School via Bristol University Post Mortem Services with results going to the Wildlife Network for Disease Surveillance and Animal Plant Health Advisory.

Although there were Road Traffic Accident cases far more was discovered about how various illnesses and diseases affect the British Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) and as the only necropsy study of its kind carried out in the UK the possible reason for the increasing decline of the species appears to have been found as it claims cubs and young adult foxes lives every year.

As the first type of study in the UK this is groundbreaking and of interest to not just wildlife vets but wildlife rescue centres.

Evidence Seems To Show That Over Feeding Foxes IS Killing Them

 

The Woodland Trust:

"Most foxes live in rural areas including woodland, farmland and wetland habitats. But that doesn’t mean you’ll see a fox when you next go for a country walk - rural foxes are very shy. You are more likely to see an urban fox trotting down the street or denning under your shed!"

Correction: since the 1980s the rural fox population has been at an all time low due to hunting, night time shooters acting as "pest control" for farmers (cash in hand) or men and women who simply love going out and killing things(including pet cats -"Basil brush disguised as a tabby cat LOL!"- deer and anything else they fancy. 

Add natural deaths such as disease, etc., and the "everywhere" country fox is far from itr. In the Welsh valleys in the late 1990s weekend fox hunts (drinking 'clubs' with mixed dogs) were finding it difficult even to find a fox -a year old cub was a "great success". 

It is probably truer that more foxes are urban now than pure old type country foxes. The Old Briti9sh Cur or Common fox, rather like the jackal elsewhere, has always had a symbiotic relationship with humans and this is also true of the Red fox; humans moving around and setting up new homes means waste food and other items (bin raiding is a thing long gone with wheelie bins which would require foxes to start climbing ladders and lifting bin lids! Human waste attracts rodents -mice and rats

The Woodland Trust on what foxes eat:

"Foxes have a really diverse diet. They are expert hunters, catching rabbits, rodents, birds, frogs and earthworms as well as eating carrion. But they aren’t carnivorous - they are actually omnivores as they dine on berries and fruit too. Urban foxes will also scavenge for food in dustbins, and often catch pigeons and rats."

In the countryside rabbit was always THE top food item. There are even accounts from farmers of foxes denning near free ranging chickens and walking straight past them to return within minutes with a rabbit.  Some farmers who recognise the worth of a fox pick up rat tails (the only part a fox will not eat) each week to keep count of how many a fox has killed. Thirty was the top number I found and the farmer never realised he had that many rats.

You will note that "chicken" does not appear on the list of foods. This is because opportunistic foxes do not get many chances. People in towns and cities allow free roaming rabbits and chickens in their unsecure gardens and then call a fox all the names under the sun because it took a rabbit or chicken -buzzards and hawks also take advantage of "!townie stupidity". If you are serious about keeping chickens and rabbits BUY a fox proof hutch/enclosure -t6here are many types and sizes online.

Pigeons we know foxes will catch if there is the opportunity.

Possibly the biggest indicator of someones lack of any knowledge of foxes is the statement "foxes have stomachs like cement mixers -they can eat anything!".  No they cannot eat "anything" as they have systems adapted over millennia to a specific diet. They are hunters and scavengers but specific things as already noted. Eating those items gives a fox and its cubs immunity to certain diseases and we are seeing that immunity already vanishing.

Above: vixen possibly in early pregnancy

Below how a fox should look. Lithe and alert and ready to chase and catch rats as well as take any fruit etc it can find.

Below: these foxes are what any vet would called "grotesquely obese" -remember a fox is no bigger than a pet cat.  The amount of excess weight in these foxes will result in kidney, liver and other internal organs and what is being dished out in that mound of food can easily be described as obscene.

Leptospirosis and babesia have been found in foxes systems and they have a natural immunity probably because eating rodents that carry the disease helps build up that immunity.  After over 80 fox post mortems we have seen what is killing foxes (excluding cars) and we are finding kidney and liver damage and one thing killing foxes and cubs to a greater degree and this seems to be a national trend noted every cub season, is leptospirosis.

Why?

There are foxes that as soon as a feeder notes cubs, are fed raw chicken wings and legs 2-4 times a day. Uncooked chicken eggs are also put out. Cooked bones can shatter and choke foxes though some people still throw those out.  Chicken uncooked (or badly cooked) has a number of health issues attached to it and from the PM reports it appears those are appearing more.

A vixen has been seen returning to cubs every few minutes with a dead rat. Up to three in 15 minutes which tells us the natural food of the fox is in plentiful supply (and why we should let foxes and cats deal with rats and not wildlife and pet killing rodenticides.  Eating the rodents builds up the cubs defences against something like leptospirosis and they are just not getting the opportunity to do so. A fox will take every scrap of food you put out "Oh, the poor thing is starving!" -NO. It is storing food and much of it going to waste.  Every spring there are posts from gardeners about finding chicken pieces or raw/cooked eggs in their flower pots -that is because the fox stored it but did not need it as 1-2 times a day it got fresh food.

We have just had one fox whose stomach was "packed full of chicken" and that is not normal.  Chicken is not a natural daily food item for foxes. If you really believe that you need to "give a treat" then one chicken wing and legs a week is fine as it supplements the fox's diet 

Foxes will not starve: The estimated rat population in the UK is somewhere between 150 to 259 million. Putting that into perspective that is more than three and a half times the human population.

  Foxes are the best pest control you can get for nothing.  Global warming and environmental changes are making an impact and foxes are a good guide to environmental health.

Feeding huge amounts of junk food to foxes and from adult to young is all part of the ‘fox lovers’ attitude to gaining a “garden pet” (feeders do not pay vets to treat foxes they always expect rescues to do that) or enticing foxes and badgers into homes and hand feeding.

The attitude must change. Less junk food handed out. Unless, of course, you are deliberately trying to kill off as many foxes as possible and science is showing that this is what is going on.,

EXPOSED: Labour’s Secret Pro-Cull Panel

  From Rob Pownall  Protect the Wild

Protect the Wild has just uncovered a secret government review that has been happening behind closed doors. In January, DEFRA launched a review to look at the latest science on bovine TB (bTB) control, with findings due in June. But instead of choosing independent experts, officials under Minister Daniel Zeichner have filled the panel with people who have spent years pushing for badger culling.

This is yet another example of vested interests corrupting decision-making at the highest levels. The recommendations from this review will be handed to the discredited BTB Partnership, a group dominated by livestock farmers, industry vets, and other pro-cull advocates.

We already fought off Rishi Sunak’s sham consultation in March—thanks to public pressure, that was thrown in the bin. But now Labour is still allowing culling to continue in the so-called Low Risk Area, under pressure from the very same officials who pushed mass badger culling under the Tories. This must end.

DEFRA’s Panel: A Conflict of Interest Scandal

One name at the centre of this latest review? Professor Charles Godfray of Oxford University, who has been reappointed to examine bTB science—despite his long history of backing badger culling.

Godfray was previously involved in the 2018 government review on bTB, which led to continued badger culling under Michael Gove. His colleague Cristl Donnelly, who co-authored work justifying culling in 2013, has stepped back from being reappointed this time—perhaps sensing the controversy. But that hasn’t stopped DEFRA from stacking the panel with pro-cull academics, including statistician Bernard Silverman, another Oxford-based researcher, tasked with checking the work of his own university.

This is Oxford University marking its own homework. A sham. A total farce.

Let’s not forget—Oxford academics have been at the heart of the badger culling disaster from the beginning. Professor John Krebs led the 1997 review that first pointed the finger at badgers, setting in motion decades of failed policy. The same people who got it catastrophically wrong then are now being given another chance to rewrite history.

Sign the petition

Why is Labour Keeping the Tory Cull Going?

Badger culling has been an abject failure—scientifically, ethically, and politically. The government’s own figures show it has made no meaningful impact on bovine TB rates in cattle. Yet Labour, despite promising to follow the science, is allowing culling to continue in parts of England.

Why? Because the same biased advisors are still embedded in DEFRA, still pushing their failed policies, and still refusing to let go of their obsession with badger blame.

The questions we need answered are:

🔴 Why is DEFRA reappointing the same discredited figures to lead this review?

🔴 Why is Minister Zeichner allowing Oxford academics with clear conflicts of interest to dominate the panel?

🔴 Why is the Chief Veterinary Officer and the APHA still pushing the same pro-cull agenda?

🔴 Who is really making the decisions inside DEFRA?

Sign the petition

What Needs to Happen Now?

We are calling for immediate action:

1️⃣ Professor Charles Godfray must step down from the panel.

2️⃣ No Oxford academics should be involved in reviewing their own work.

3️⃣ No panel members should have a history of supporting badger culling.

4️⃣ Minister Zeichner must act decisively and appoint a truly independent review team.

5️⃣ The Chief Veterinary Officer and APHA leadership must be held accountable for their failures.

6️⃣ All badger culling must end—immediately.

This is a fight we can win. We’ve done it before. The public stopped Sunak’s consultation in March. We can stop this corrupt review too.

Take Action Now

📢 Write to Minister Daniel Zeichner—demand he removes Godfray and overhauls this panel. We’ve set up a petition so you can send our pre-written letter in just a single click. Click the button below to take action in just a few seconds.

Sign the petition

📢 Sign the petition to end the Badger cull itself—help us expose this scandal and pressure the government to act.

📢 Share this far and wide—the public needs to know what’s happening behind closed doors.

For 14 years, badgers have been blamed and slaughtered for a problem that lies with poor cattle testing and biosecurity failings in the livestock industry. Labour promised a fresh approach. But unless we act now, this will just be Tory badger culling 2.0—with the same people pulling the strings.

It’s time to end the culls. No more excuses. No more sham reviews. No more badger scapegoating.

Sign the petition

Old British Foxes and Wild Cats; Old European wild cats, Corsican wild cat and Hong Kong Fox: A Sunday Round up

 

I began the British Fox Study in 1976 and soon found a lot of incorrect information was being pushed out by 'experts'.  However, to try to make my mark I wanted to show how the "old countryman's tales" of there once being very large foxes was a myth. Over the next 34 years I searched newspaper and book archives as well as accumulating my own library and in 2010 I published the first Reds Paper.

The first Red Paper showed that there were indeed Old type British foxes but they had been hunted into extinction by the 1860s.  I also found that thousands of foxes were imported into the UK each year to replenish "hunting stock" -the descendants of these are the red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) that we see today.

I also discovered that jackals, coyotes and even wolves were released by hunts and in many cases some hunt supporters attempted to cross breed to make a better hunting animal. It is a very long and complicated story but I fully documented the history and everything was fully referenced.

But it is said that a picture or photo can speak a thousand words.  The search to find specimens of the Old fox types (for which I found anecdotal evidence of them also being in Europe at one time) seemed to be impossible. John Colquhoun shot a Mountain fox (the largest of the foxes) in the mid 1830s and one of his books contained an artist's drawing of this.  But artists can often add to a subject, however, in this case the artist (unknown) was 100% spot on and this can be stated as photographs of the very fox appeared on an auction site and the accuracy was striking. The Extinct6 Fox and Wild Cats Museum now possesses the fox in question plus what6 appear to be a couple similar specimens.

The fact that it could be proven that we had three variants of a fox in the UK interested no one. The fact that anecdotal evidence showed similar fox was in Western Europe at one point also interested no one. Dogma draws in the money.

The interest in jackals, coyotes, wolves as well as wolf-dog hybrids saw me look at cases from the United States (with wildlife and other bodies cooperating)  and Europe. With the scope of work increasing the British Fox Study became the British Fox and Wild Canid Study in 2019.

Similarly the work started with the Wild Cats and Feral Study in 1980 resulted in decades of work leading to the clear identification of what the wild cats in the UK looked like originally and, again, the Extinct Fox and Wild Cats Museum have specimens of these.

Work in 2000 looked at and stated that there was indeed a wild cat on the island of Corsica and this was dismissed as myth until in 2023 zoologists found and identified the wild cat. Island cats have always been something that has fascinated me. 

https://foxwildcatwolverineproject.blogspot.com/2023/06/mysterious-corsican-cat-fox-revealed-as.html

And foxes -there was a fox on Hong Kong that was hunted to extinction under colonial rule. No museum or HK based naturalists had any idea of the fox type and there appeared to be no historical photographic references to the fox.  It took many years but I eventually identified the fox type that had been made extinct as a relative of one from Southern China.

A list of other things discovered or achieved can be found in this post 

https://foxwildcatwolverineproject.blogspot.com/2023/09/an-overview-and-what-we-have-discovered.html

But there is more. For many years the one thing I had noted was the decline in numbers of foxes -cars and shooters claim many but I was concerned at the number of foxes being reported as "poisoned" in the city where I live, Bristol. Was it poisoning or a disease of some kind?  It took a lot of "discussion" but I was then told that I could submit unusual or suspicious fox death cases for post mortem examination. The Bristol Fox Deaths Project ran from 2021-2024 and was the only one of its kind in the UK -and it made some very interesting discoveries including what may be killing a lot of young foxes each year.

In 2023 the official Bristol Fox and Badger Deaths Registers were started to list all reported deaths and where possible highlight wildlife death hot spots -which they did. The registers are ongoing projects.

Sadly, with badgers the UK Health an d Safety Executive refuse to allow post mortems to be carried out under the 'threat' of bovine TB.

To all of this can be added the work I did as a UK police forces exotic wildlife consultant between 1977-2018.  This work, specifically on "non native cats", also saw me consulted buy German police forces and agencies in Australia. My name is on several technical papers on the subject presented to conferences in the United States.

All of this has been unfinanced/sponsored work and without any association with a university or college -although a good few have benefitted from my work.

The next natural step is DNA work on the Old wild cat and fox specimens which is, once again, beyond our financial means.  Looking at European Old type foxes has been interesting and a few discoveries made there.

That is the work and the situation as things roll on slowly because no one or organisation funds work of this type on foxes or wild cats.

Bristol Fox Deaths Project 2021 -2024

 

 Just waiting for the proof copy to check and then I'll put out the order link.

Pages   226

Binding Type   Paperback Perfect Bound

Interior Color   Color

Dimensions   A4

£25.00

In 2020 the British Fox and Wild Canids Study (f 1976) decided that the number of suspected

fox poisoning cases in the City of Bristol needed to be properly investigated. The attitude of "just foxes" had prevailed for too long and the number of deaths reported were either deliberate poisoning or indicators of some form of disease in foxes.

Necropsies (post mortems) were carried out at Langford Veterinary School via Bristol University Post Mortem Services with results going to the Wildlife Network for Disease Surveillance and Animal Plant Health Advisory.

Although there were Road Traffic Accident cases far more was discovered about how various illnesses and diseases affect the British Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) and as the only necropsy study of its kind carried out in the UK the possible reason for the increasing decline of the species appears to have been found as it claims cubs and young adult foxes lives every year.

As the first type of study in the UK this is groundbreaking and of interest to not just wildlife vets but wildlife rescue centres.