The Tortoise and the Fox
Now the natives East of the turnpike to Portsmouth are always grumbling that the village pays scant attention to them. We do have correspondents there, but they write that Nothing Ever Happens. All the more exciting, then, to get word of a scoop just before Christmas. Packing supplies and pulling on stout hiking boots, our reporting staff trekked to the hinterland of Thorkhill Road to discover streets of peaceful suburban dwellings much like our own, built in the main of brick. Despite the remoteness of the area it turns out that the inhabitants speak a form of English and are recognisably similar and familiar to other villagers. As are their problems in parking.
The mission: to document wild animal depredations. For in late November urban foxes brutally and without provocation attacked a garden tortoise. Margie, a testudo marginata, was looking forward to a peaceful hibernation when the foxes struck, savaging one and a half limbs and leaving the poor tortoise on its back in a pool of blood. Margie is now contemplating a long lifespan of disability, possibly with a wooden leg. Earlier these foxes, presumed to be a local gang, had snatched an innocent rabbit from her hutch and vilely slaughtered her. They continue to terrorise the community, sneering through kitchen doors and latterly biting a harmless dog on its nose in a further episode of wanton aggression.
Owner Fiona and her husband rushed Margie to the vets whence the poor tortoise was referred to a consultant herpetologist in Sheen, of great renown. He warmed Margie up from pre-hibernation state and then amputated the remains, applying a dressing, drip and antibiotics. In the process - one of considerable expense - it was discovered that Margie is in fact a male tortoise. He is recovering steadily in his terrarium and when warmer weather arrives will be given field trials in the garden to establish whether he can still walk. If not, he will be fitted with an artificial prosthesis so that he can continue to get about and to play with the family children Antonia and Lottie. Margie, an active and out-going tortoise until the incident, enjoys going down the children's slide and comes back for more, likes a cuddle, and seeks out Poppy the family dog as a playmate (Margie's defensive instincts being thus allayed may have contributed to his misplaced trust in foxes).
The vets treating Margie report that fox attacks are on the increase. We have corroboration for this, including the dastardly vulpine murder last Autumn of the fat koi Goldfinger, a placid and trusting resident of Thames Ditton, worth a bob or two to boot, whose giant golden scales were strewn all over the lawn. When one was a boy, one hardly ever saw a fox. They were shy if not deferential, knew their place in the countryside, and kept to it. These days, urban foxes are everywhere in numbers, strolling around with insouciance even in broad daylight. More than one in seven English foxes are townies, indeed chavs. They dig up your bulbs, defaecate on your doorstep and your lawn and along the pavement, eat garden birds and voles, bury surplus corpses in your flowerbeds to disinter later, and engage in much unpleasant mischief.
There are far too many urban foxes now, and as their numbers have grown so the numbers of other suburban mammals such as hedgehogs seem to have declined. Their sex life, somewhat raucous, will raise an eyebrow. They breed promiscuously. Lamentable to relate, an average urban vixen's litter will be sired by four different fathers, three of whom are outside her own social group. Foxes spread various diseases to which dogs are also vulnerable, including fatal mange - we had a dreadful mangy fox visiting the garden last year.
Some residents, however, like to see foxes around and will feed them, contributing to a population explosion that could scarcely be supported by natural diet, and encourage them to be tame, thereby emboldening Reynard to take further liberties. The Wildlife Trust and the Mammal Society do not discourage this. Some decades ago the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (as it was then) started to kill foxes in urban boroughs. But control has since been mostly abandoned as impractical and expensive. Even where they are reported as a pest, Elmbridge Borough Council will take no action to control foxes. Alas, if you don't want them around, once they have marked your grounds with their urine and faeces (the foxes, that is - not the Council) it is very hard to outfox them.
our reporting staff
References:
Urban Fox FAQS
Vulpine Sex Life
Elmbridge policy of inaction