Research on fox repellent and foxes’ behaviour

in urban environments

WHY DO WE HAVE FOXES IN URBAN ENVIRONMENTS?At the beginning of the 1950s, the rabbit population decreased due to myxomatosis (a decease which kills rabbits). This forces the foxes to move to the cities or outer skirts of the cities. As the cities grew larger, parts of the countryside immediately became surrounded in the urban areas. Which enclosed and foxes (and other animals) living there. That is how foxes became closer to humans.

WHAT DO FOXES EAT (DIET)?

Foxes are omnivorous, i.e. they will eat anything. Their diet depends on the food available in the area where they largest component of their diet is scavenged items such as meat, bones, bread and bird food. Wild mammals, birds and invertebrates are also common.‘Invertebrates’ is a category that includes earthworms and insects, such as beetles, cutworms (moth larvae) and adult craneflies (daddy-long-legs).

HOW LONG CAN URBAN FOXES LIVE?

In captivity foxes can live up to fifteen years but wild foxes live very short lives, on average about two years. In London, when local au-thorities were still culling foxes, the average life expectancy was just fourteen months. In Bristol, before mange, life expectancy was slightly longer, on average eighteen months.In cities that are mange-free, the commonest cause of death for urban foxes is being hit by a car. For instance, in Bristol each year before the spread of mange, some 60% of foxes that died were killed by cars. Comparable figures for Copenhagen and Illinois were 89% and 47% respectively.Mange - type of a disease that effects dog’s skin could also be found in plants, birds and reptiles

PROBLEM WITH FOXES?

Foxes can be a nuisance to gardeners and allotment owners because of fouling, digging or damaging garden plants.

Moreover, in autumn and winter, the main dispersal and breeding sea-sons, foxes can be heard screaming and barking and thus disturbing people’s sleep or prompting dogs to bark.

PROBLEM WITH FOXES?

Foxes kill very few pets, and very few rifle dustbins. In Bristol, where 5480 households were surveyed, only 2.7% reported that foxes fre-quently rifled their dustbins, 16.4% occasionally and 80.9% never. With the introduction of wheelie bins, this low level of nuisance has disappeared.

PROBLEM WITH FOXES?

A four-week-old baby boy was attacked by a fox in his home in south London.

BBC’s John Andrew said: “The mother was at home and heard this awful scream, went next door where the baby was, found it had been dragged from the cot onto the floor and the baby’s hand was in the jaws of the fox.“She was obviously in a terrible panic and did what she could to get the fox off, including kicking it. Eventually it did let go but the baby was found with quite serious injuries.”

WHY DO FOXES VISIT GARDENS?

There are a few common factors to why foxes go to, and behave the way they do in other people’s gardens:

- If you use compost with fish or animal bones you are most likely to be having foxes come over and dig near your plants.- If your garden is full of life, as in insets and invertebrates have made it their home then the foxes would be paying a visit to eat them. They would also leave animal and fish bones so over time it would produce maggots, which are one of the most eaten thing in the urban environ-ment by foxes.

Lethal fox control has been attempted in the past by local authorities in England and Wales without success. Exemplary is the case of Lon-don where shooting and trapping of foxes was carried out first by the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (now DEFRA) and then by the London Boroughs from the 1940s to the 1970s, and in some Bor-oughs even into the early 1980s.

Lethal control was not effective: a dead animal leaves an empty terri-tory and is quickly replaced by another fox regardless of the number of foxes killed. Furthermore, lethal control is expensive. The costs as-sociated with catching and killing a fox generally far outweigh the low level of nuisance caused by foxes so that most councils have stopped lethal fox control.Both prevention and non-lethal methods of control are more effective and cheaper, and an increasing number of council are applying them.

FOX MANAGMENT:

However, foxes cause little serious nuisance in towns and most problems are easily solved by using commercially available repellents. There are a few simple measures to take to avoid problems:

- Keep poultry and pets securely housed- Tidy up rubbish and bramble patches - Put all you rubbish in the bin, not by the side or, if this is not possible, - Put your rubbish out in the morning and not the night before the rubbish is about the be collected.- Use commercially available deterrents to stop foxes leaving droppings in your garden- Make sure there are no entrances underneath your house/sheds

FOX MANAGMENT:

FOX MANAGMENT:

Foxes are legally classified as vermin and as such are on the DEFRA vermin list. Therefore it is legal to kill a fox as long as it does not in-terfear with any other law in the UK. Alternatively you can call pest control and they could take care of the problem for you, but due to the past experience by the local councils it has not proven to be efficient.

Following are the two ways of killing foxes:- You can kill a fox by shooting.- You can kill a fox by trapping it in a cage and killing it humanly.

You can only shoot a fox as long as it does not interfere with any other UK law against shooting. It is illegal to use an air rifle to shoot foxes.You can only trap the fox in a cage as using other traps are consid-ered as animal cruelty. The only humane way of killing them after trap-ping them would be to inject a lethal substance, gassing or shooting from a distance. Trapping a fox and releasing it in the country side it considers poor welfare practice. As foxes are territorial and due to the change of environment and lack of experience, because they have lived in an urban environment as the are use to scrounging and not hunting could kill them.

Letting your dog loose on the fox is not considered a crime but if more then one dog attacks or chases the fox is considered a crime as the laws in the UK prohibit fox hunting.

FOX MANAGMENT:

There are other more friendlier ways of taking measurements which could help you take care of the problem.

There are other more friendlier ways of taking measurements which could help you take care of the problem.

FOX MANAGMENT: FOX MANAGMENT:

Urinating in and around your garden premises would ward off foxes as foxes are territorial and the smell of the urine would make them believe that this is someone else’s territory. Or some bigger animal has take over their territory. Make sure that its a man’s Urine. Alternatively you could go to your local Zoo and ask for lion or tiger urine.

Planting chillies, garlic, onion or any other pungent smelling plant or vegetables will also repel foxes as these odour makes their mouth and throat swell up and give them an internal rash. Chillies contain cap-saicin which gives the chillies their heat and this substance is what causes this effect on foxes.

FOX MANAGMENT:

Hanging CDs or having bright lights in your garden also repells foxes and they are octernal and tend to olny come out at night. The bight lights and the reflection form the CDs will spook the foxes and keep them out of your garden.