Can you shoot urban foxes

Foxes can be a nuisance, particularly during the mating season when their screams can be heard at night, or when male foxes fight with each other over territory or a female fox. The problem of fox noise is seasonal and lasts for just a couple of weeks. Foxes will sometimes tear rubbish sacks open and leave the contents strewn all over the street. However, other animals, including pet cats and dogs, can also be responsible for this.

Attacks on children are extremely rare. Statistically, the risk that foxes pose is very small, and the risk from dangerous dogs is far greater. Foxes pose little danger to cats, but do sometimes chase them. Generally foxes will back away, knowing they will probably suffer a serious injury in a fight. Foxes may scavenge the remains of dead cats but actual evidence of them killing cats is extremely rare.

Cats and dogs vastly outnumber foxes and they usually co-exist without any serious problems. However many fox cubs are killed each year by pet cats and dogs. Small pets, like rabbits and guinea pigs, can be taken by foxes. They need to be securely housed to ensure foxes cannot get access to them. Most wire pens are not robust enough to deter a determined fox. Foxes also eat rats and other rodents and can help to keep those pests down. An abundance of food and shelter and an absence of predators has enabled the fox to thrive in inner cities.

If we, as a community, reduce the availability of food and places to shelter, fox numbers will reduce, as will the number of rats, feral pigeons and seagulls. Some people think the Council should start culling foxes, but this is extremely expensive, potentially dangerous and very unlikely to succeed. There was a nationwide program to cull foxes that ran for more than 30 years, but fox numbers did not noticeably decline. Legally, there are only two methods that can be used to dispose of foxes.

Big ugly brutes they are. Nuke it from orbit. One question about non-mountain bikes — the rest just dumb. Troll in the style of many others before — or is it the same one many times? Foxes kill chickens for the fun of it.

I grew up on a farm and from time to time a fox would get into an enclosure and kill every chicken in there but only take one or two. Farmers for this reason hate them — Warton protecting them is almost impossible.

Everybody wants free range eggs and you can't build a foxproof fence right the way around huge fields full of chickens. They want to be outside in the daytime and in the coops at night. Snaring is a terrible means of dealing with any issue like this and I'm sure the fox would have much to say whilst trapped in the snare, no doubt scarring all the kids in the street for life.

Assuming its crapping in your garden or rummaging through the bins, contact your council and see if they can get someone to sort it. Foxes might be nice to look at but they do cause problems that need dealing with, especially for farmers. A good mate of mine at the time many years ago had a pet chicken once, called Kentucky. Kentucky was huge he used to say it was a vulture cross and used to run to the back door to see him if he was in the kitchen and all the kids from the area used to call round to play with Kentucky.

He chopped off a limb a day until it died. The Fox lasted three days. Some time after that the same mate cleavered off three fingers belonging to a bloke in a pub over a disagreement. Some time later still he was doing a three stretch for the massive drugs operation he was running via local biker gangs, not to mention the unproven accusations regarding firearm retailing. My mrs mum keeps chickens and has a fox trap. She gets all exited when she catches them and has them shot by a bloke down the road.

Really pisses me off. I would much rather see a fox running across the fields than a load of stinking, noisy flea ridden chickens. E king old witch. Foxes are beautiful animals — to look at- but they are a pest nonetheless so you have my blessing to dispatch it.

OK, I have chickens but they're protected; but a fox crushed a strawberry plant so now it's war again. I'm thinking maybe build a fence around the patch though…. I researched this a little after finding a snared fox on a farm I was surveying. The above about snares never being legal is claptrap. However, it's unlikely that you'll be able to kill the fox in a humane manner once you've snared it.

Shooting it is out of the question in an urban area, except with an air rifle, and you may well struggle to make a clean job of it. I'm not a squeamish person when it comes to killing animals — I grew up on a farm myself, but catching things in snares really isn't pleasant at all. Animals will, on occasion, knaw off limbs to escape, and snared animals are an absolutely pathetic sight.

I expect what would happen in reality is that you'd snare the fox, and then be unable to kill it, leaving you in a rather difficult situation. The Wild Mammal Protection Act protects most mammals from a variety of cruel acts which are intended to cause unnecessary suffering.

When a fox has been captured the Protection of Animals Act can also be used to prosecute those people who ill treat the fox. Poison: There is no poison that can be legally used on foxes.

Other councils claim shooting foxes is inhumane, and could lead to prosecution. Already subscribed? Log in. Forgotten your password?