Author Topic: Poor wee things (Read 4031 times)

AengusOg · « **on:** May 11, 2011, 04:39:44 pm »

http://www.nfws.org.uk

HappyHippy · « **Reply #1 on:** May 11, 2011, 05:17:31 pm »

Hmmm - very cute, but still GRRRRRR

Karen

AengusOg · « **Reply #2 on:** May 11, 2011, 07:30:24 pm »

Do you think people donate these sort of sums to that body?

I suppose it takes all sorts to make a world, but there is something seriously wrong with a society who would continually treat individual animals rather than address the root cause of the problem. Sarcoptic mange is a scourge of the fox. Parasites can only overwhelm a species when the numbers of the host species are too great, and when environmental conditions are less than ideal.

All that money to keep foxes which cannot be returned to the wild...it's absolute madness when children are dying across the world. It makes me mad.

jonkil · « **Reply #3 on:** May 11, 2011, 08:04:54 pm »

You always get people on every side of the fence. I hate foxes, ever since i was a kid and see what they do to chickens/ducks/lambs etc. We are over-run here in Ireland with them, regularly get requests to exterminate packets of them, and an annual quarry will be 500+ foxes. We take them out cleanly and humanely like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPJh6ivCsn4

HappyHippy · « **Reply #4 on:** May 11, 2011, 08:31:06 pm »

I can understand the 'cuteness' factor (cos cubs are very cute, but so is any baby) and most people, whether town or country dwellers, wouldn't have any real cause to dislike them. I can see that folk would donate - the same folk that feed them and consider themselves lucky to have a wild creature that comes to visit them. It's only those of us that have any kind of livestock that really understand what horrible, dirty, sly little beasties they are and have an immense dislike for them

Rosemary · « **Reply #5 on:** May 11, 2011, 09:11:09 pm »

I truly don't understand why folk get so het up about foxes and call them sly, vicious or whatever. To me that implies that they are deliberately that way, in the way that a human would be sly or vicious ie knowingly.

Foxes are just being foxes. I'm not saying that they aren't a pest to farmers and livestock keepers and shouldn't be kept in check - but they are only doing what is in their nature, without malice.

plumseverywhere · « **Reply #6 on:** May 12, 2011, 07:21:44 am »

we've got this couple of dog foxes that are checking out our land, they've now moved into our back garden and regularly skirt round the chicken coop, weeing everywhere. we've been lucky so far this year but can't help wondering if they are doing some sort of recky to see how and where they can get into the animals? maybe they aren't though I don't know. The whole fox thing confuses me because I accept they need to eat and if I haven't penned my chickens adequately and they keep getting out and a fox gets them, that's surely my fault but..if the fox gets in and kills them all but doesn't eat them, then that's horrible in a different way. sorry not making much sense today!

Sylvia · « **Reply #7 on:** May 12, 2011, 07:45:48 am »

I am absolutely not a fan of foxes but I would not see any animal suffer and mange is a dreadful and slow death sentence. It would make more sense to me to shoot the poor beggars and keep the numbers down.
As said above these things are nature's way of keeping a species in check and I dare say that goes for the human species as well! Nature isn't compassionate and doesn't do things gently.
I have had so much poultry taken by foxes and all due to my own carelesness or lack of thought. I am having a "Fort Knox" of a poultry pen being built for me with deer fencing and barbed wire featuring strongly, hopefully that will keep the blighters out!!
As for "rehabilatating" fox cubs and releasing them who knows where, it makes my blood boil!!

Brucklay · « **Reply #8 on:** May 12, 2011, 08:54:58 am »

Like plums.. I find it a difficult one - they are just doing what nature intended - and agree with Silvia if a fox got one of my duck I would be more mad at myself for not protecting them than the fox. We lost ducklings to a rat as the pen wasn't secure enough - that was my fault not the rats - but I did fight back. We live on a gaming estate so the game keeper keeps things in check and I would always prefer to see any animal killed quickly than some horrid disease - so at the end of the day I would probably vote for putting them down .... sorry little fluffy things