Podcast 002 – Why are there foxes in our towns & cities?

Hi this is Ben from the Fox Repellent Expert website and welcome to episode 2 of this podcast.

In this episode I’m going to take a look at the history of urban foxes in the UK’s towns and cities. 

HOUSE BUILDING BOOM

To understand how foxes came to populate Britain’s towns and cities we need to go back in time to the 1930s.

After the Wall Street Crash in 1929, Britain had been suffering from the effects of the Great Depression as well as servicing the expensive debts left over from WW1. 

The Government was keen to boost the UK’s flagging economy so the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Neville Chamberlain, introduced several economic stimulus packages, the most important of which included slashing interest rates. 

As a result, it became much cheaper to borrow money. This encouraged private investors to buy up cheap land, take advantage of minimal planning restrictions and build a huge amount of houses.

Much of this new housing stock was very affordable and low interest rates enabled more people than ever before to take out mortgages to buy these homes.

Hundreds of thousands of new houses were built during the 1930s housing boom, with a large amount of them around London, the South East and the West Midlands. Most of these houses are still standing today and can be identified by their mock Tudor, half timber styling.

These new housing estates were built on green land on the outskirts of towns, adjacent to the countryside, meaning for the first time people were able to move out of the highly populated inner cities and into these newly created leafy suburbs.

These suburbs were typically low density. The houses were spread out in tree lined streets and usually had large front and back gardens with ample parks, commons and copses dotted around the neighbourhoods. The suburbs provided some aspects of country living yet were convenient enough for a short commute into town.

While being great for humans, this environment halfway between town and country was also perfect for foxes. 

Railway lines, built to allow commuters easy access into the city,  gave foxes a direct route straight into the heart of the suburbs. When they got there, big gardens, dense shrubbery and a constant supply of waste food gave foxes everything they needed to set up dens and establish territories. 

These favourable conditions have only increased from the 30s to today, with more and more of us living in urban areas than ever before. 

IN OUR GARDENS

If we look at our gardens from a fox’s point of view, there’s so many things that they find attractive.

Shelter in the form of thick shrubbery, under decking and sheds

A water source from ponds and water features

There’s natural fox prey like chickens, rabbits and other small pets. 

Our well manicured lawns, flowerbeds and vegetable patches provide a great place to dig earthworms and grubs.

On top of that we’ve seen a huge increase in restaurants, cafes and food delivery apps, which create a shameful amount of waste food. Shameful for us, absolutely perfect for foxes. 

Another important point is that lots of people like to feed foxes and actively encourage them into their gardens. Even if you don’t do it, there’s a very high chance one of your neighbours does.

So when you look at these contributing factors it’s no surprise that foxes have been able to firmly establish themselves among us over the last 80 or 90 years.

Humans have created a habitat for foxes to thrive and it could be argued that fox activity hasn’t really exploded, more that it’s grown in line with our own migration into urban areas.

HOW MANY FOXES?

So how many urban foxes are there?

Exact numbers have been notoriously hard to get right. A survey carried out in 1995 concluded there were around 33,000 urban foxes in the UK, while more recent research suggests there could be as many as 150,000 foxes in our towns and cities.

Interestingly, the British Trust For Ornithology has recorded a 42% drop in red fox numbers across the UK between 1996 – 2017, though this includes the rural fox population as well.

Clearly, establishing reliable figures on how many urban foxes there are has not proved to be an exact science. 

Foxes are very adaptable creatures and because of the abundance of favourable conditions, an urban fox can operate in a territory of just 0.1sqkm, a tiny area when compared to a rural fox, which needs around 50sqkm to survive. 

Being able to live successfully in such close proximity to us and each other is why we see urban red foxes so often. And it should always be remembered that, whatever your opinion of foxes, it’s us humans that have created the conditions that allow them to thrive.

That’s it for this episode of the Fox Repellent Expert Podcast. If you want any information on how to humanely deter foxes from your garden, please visit foxrepellentexpert.com. Thanks for listening and see you next time.