If you have a brain you cannot help but understand that the UK is undergoing an environmental emergency. The greatest measure of how healthy an environment is are the predators.. Predators need prey and prey are only plentiful in wildlife friendly environments. They eat, breed and then provide a food source for the predators -owls, hawks, buzzards and foxes.
(c)2022 David Phillips
In an urban environment -and we know that they have had a symbikotic relationship with humans going back to ancient times (rather like the jackal in its home territory) We know from text sources that there seem to have been fox feeders in the 19th century -although they were not called that and they were quite secretive. Fox feeders can, if sensible, help foxes and the old feeders/watchers in Bristol did that and tried as hard as they could during the mange epidemic of the mid 1990s to save foxes but we were still left with only 6% of the fox population.
If there is one thing that Bristol has, aside from the largest urban fox population outside of London, it is rats and mice. Most people see rats more than mice. Poisons are not the answer and even in the United States cities such as Baltimore caoture and health check feral cats then those that cannot be homed are released back into the city to deal with rats. Baltimore is also seeing far more foxes now because there is sufficient natural prey for them. Poisons do not work but do kill off mammals such as hedgehogs and badgers and foxes as well as birds of prey that pick up dead or dying rodents.
(c)2022 Respective copyright holder
This is a bit of a ramble I'm afraid.
We have the foxes and are learning a lot about how they are dying through our Fox Deaths Project and some of the findings are eye openers. Sadly, we only tend to get foxes that die and there are enough of them. What we would like to do is be able to treat sick and injured foxes as well as, where we can, badgers. Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s Westbury on Trym Wildlife Park used to treat some wildlife casualties but they went defeunct in the 1970s.
That was it.
Now if there is a sick or injured fox or badger people in Bristol have to contact Secret World in Somerset so some distance away. Hedgehogs and feral pigeons are catered for by some people in the City (like I used to) but that is it. Foxes may have to be trapped in cages to then be treated and at the4 moment Zoe Webber and Matt Lvy are doing most of that with no real support. Remember that when caught a fox is transported down to Somerset unless it needs emergency treatment fast in which case it goes to a vet for "first response" and most vets advise putting injured foxes down.
(c)2022 Z. Webber
Again -that is it. We have an injured fox it may well (but not in every circumstance) recover if it can be taken care of and treated with meds. However, we have no such place and vet buills are way too high for people already with no finances.
London has a good few wildlife rescues large and small and compared to Bristol has 24/7 complete coverage!
There are experienced wildlife rescue volunteers willing to do the work but to do the work two things are needed: a location and...money. The UK simply is not geared up for or interested in supporting wildlife rescue-wildlife of any type. It is supposed to be a nation of animal lovers but ask the animal rescues -domestic and wildlife- how much they struggle to feed and treat as well as look after animals during recovery. Rescues have vanished -large and small and leaving unqualified people advising other unqualified people how to treat sick and injured animals. That is not good.
We are currently looking at whether there is any grant funding because we cannot depend on public support that is not there. Whether we get anywhere is to be seen but trying to help wildlife in the UK is an ongoing fight and you tend to lose more battles than you win.
