Should we be feeding urban foxes?

Research doesn’t suggest ‘explosion’ in urban fox population

Contrary to what many may think, there isn’t any solid scientific evidence to suggest that the urban fox population has hugely increased.

In fact, what studies have shown is that as our urban areas have grown, foxes living in our towns and cities have simply grown at the same rate.

But it’s not the crazy explosion of ‘killer foxes’ that some media outlets would have us believe.

Here’s some research to back up that statement:

In 1999, the Game Conservancy Trust’s ‘National Gamebag Census‘ estimated that there were around 33,600 urban foxes in the UK.

In 2012, the preliminary results of the survey conducted on Channel 4’s ‘Foxes Live: Wild In The City‘ series, suggested there were around 40,000 urban foxes.

That’s a gap of 13 years, during which a lot of development has taken place in urban areas across the country, so the relative increase in foxes is to be expected.

A human cause for urban fox success

As the urban human population increases, more and more facilities are required to support this growth.

This sees an increase in things like restaurants, bars, cafes, takeaways, mini-supermarkets, all of which inadvertently provide sustenance for foxes.

Add in the fact that households waste an awful lot of food, along with many councils not providing wheelie bins and resorting to fortnightly collections, it means that there’s a very human cause behind urban foxes thriving.

Well-known wildlife expert and TV personality, Chris Packham has put it well:

“The fox population is self-regulating. If there’s not enough food, the foxes will move elsewhere or they will stop breeding. The problem in cities is we waste so much food. We drop our takeaways and so much other stuff, that foxes are able to prosper. There’s never any need to pull the trigger on [cull] them. If we just cleaned up our cities, with more bins and more responsible action, then we would have less foxes.”

Are foxes tamer than in the past?

A question that isn’t often asked is whether urban foxes have lost their fear of humans over the last 20 – 30 years.

The research done on 2012’s Foxes Live programme, headed by University of Brighton’s Dr Dawn Scott, found that 1.5% of people who took part in their survey reported the problem of foxes actually coming into their house.

Dr Scott was very surprised by this figure and admitted it was much higher than she had expected. However, without any data to compare this to, it’s really just an interesting statistic rather than anything conclusive about behavioural changes.

Which brings us round to the issue of humans feeding foxes. It’s a thorny issue that seems to polarise opinion among the public.

A recent phone in on Vanessa Feltz’s BBC London Radio Show had several members of the public calling in to say how much they love foxes, how they’ve always fed them and how they have no intention of stopping.

But, crucially, the ‘what’s the harm in feeding foxes’ view is generally held by people who are not experts on wildlife.

What do the experts say about feeding foxes?

Chris Packham, who is a fan of foxes, says:

“These animals shouldn’t be hand-fed. They shouldn’t be encouraged too close to people. If you’re going to feed them, feed them at a great distance and watch them through binoculars. We don’t want to tame a fox who could confuse someone else [who doesn’t like foxes] for you.”

Peter Crowden, Pest Control Specialist & Chairman of the National Pest Technician’s Association (NPTA):

“The problem isn’t the foxes, they unfortunately have got a very bad label. The problem is the people. We have got to educate the people not to feed and encourage foxes into their homes. You can’t cuddle a fox, they are very dangerous wild animals. Numbers of foxes have not increased over the last 30 years, but a fox cannot tell the difference between a house that is happy to provide it with a source of food and one that is not.”

Dr Roger Mugford, Animal Behaviourist & founder of The Animal Behaviour Centre:

“In the country, foxes are very averse to human contact, but in London it’s different. They associate humans with food… I think it’s human behaviour that has to change and that means not feeding foxes. I think education is the way forward. I know foxes are beautiful creatures and they’re wonderful to watch, but let them be wild. By changing their mindset and turning them into semi-domesticated animals, we endanger them.”

The views of the experts quoted here do make logical sense. However fluffy and cute some of us may think they are, ultimately foxes are wild animals who are more than capable of fending for themselves without the need to receive human handouts.

Of course, it’s impossible to prove that the foxes who attacked baby twins, bit the finger off of a baby or who were caught licking a baby’s face had been the recipient of food from other people in the area, but humans trying to tame foxes by feeding them probably does more harm than good.

Foxes are a part of the urban landscape and we should count ourselves lucky that we get to see them at such close quarters.

But the statistics show that foxes are doing just fine and do not need extra help from us. Laws against feeding foxes are not necessary, but people should really think twice before (quite selfishly) putting out food for a species that doesn’t need it.

If you live in an area that has foxes, you’re inevitably going to see them whether you put food out or not.

Why encourage an animal that doesn’t need encouragement?