Foxy rogue in trouble yet again

SO said the Bard of Avon.

The animal kingdom’s loveable rogue is feted in literature and folklore; there is never a dull moment when Reynard is around. Now he’s in trouble again, accused of attacking twin baby girls while they slept in their cots in a London suburb. Lola and Isabella Kouppans, nine months old, were in an upstairs bedroom at their home. The evening was warm so a door of the house was left open. At about 10 o’clock their mother, hearing a muffled cry, went to the children’s room. She turned on the light and encountered a fox. The animal showed no fear; it “just stared at her”. Then she noticed blood on the bedclothes. The twins, with cuts on their arms and faces, were rushed to hospital. Pest controllers set traps. A fox was captured and killed the following night.

A notorious Australian incident comes to mind. Lindy Chamberlain, camping with her family near Ayer’s Rock in 1980, claimed that a dingo snatched her baby from their tent. The police disturbed the crime scene and bungled the investigation. It was suggested the couple, who were in fact Seventh Day Adventists, had sacrificed the child to the gods of the desert in a bizarre religious ritual. Chamberlain was jailed for murder. Years later, an English tourist fell to his death from the rock. During the search for his body, the missing child’s jacket was discovered in a dingo lair. The mother’s conviction was overturned and it is now accepted that dingoes can take babies. But, despite the dingo incident, the dog family’s terrible reputation is largely undeserved. Wolves, always the baddies in children’s stories, never attack people, unless driven mad by rabies. Foxes take poultry and small domestic pets but does this mean that parents of young children have anything to fear? Mayor Boris Johnson thinks they have. He wants foxes controlled. This “romantic and cuddly” creature, he says, is “a pest”. But does a crusade against foxes make any sense? New farming practices have made the countryside less attractive to foxes. Scrub was removed, hedges were destroyed or cut back. The modern farm has much less biodiversity than old-style traditional ones. Even chicken-coops became impregnable. But the 21th century fox is an entrepreneurial beast. Faced with food shortages and fewer places in which to sleep and raise young, many left the countryside seeking a better life in the cities. Fantastic Mr Fox is a bit of a snob; he particularly likes well-endowed gardens in swanky suburbs. Studies in Britain suggest densities of urban foxes in such areas can be as much as five times higher than in the countryside.

Living in close proximity to people and suffering no persecution, the squatters have become less fearful. However, they remain cautious and attacks on people are almost unknown. An incident in the United States, in which a fox spontaneously assaulted a walker, was filmed by a security camera. Examination of the videotape, however, showed that the animal was foaming at the mouth and the victim became infected with rabies. There is no rabies in Britain or Ireland so such an attack could not occur here.

It’s been suggested that foxes are attracted by the smell of milk or nappies. When raiding refuse bins, they will run off with any smelly bundle that they think might contain food. According to this theory, the rogue London fox seized the babies by their nappies and tried to drag them from their cots.

Perhaps that is the explanation but I prefer Shakespeare’s one. Pet animals, since they have lost their fear of people, tend to be more dangerous than wild ones. The buzz-word, in biology-speak, is “habituation”. Domestication changes the rules of engagement between animals and people. Only a fox raised in captivity is likely to enter a house. With 30,000 of them in London, orphan cubs are sometimes raised as pets. Endearing when small, they are shown the door once they have grown into big nuisances. As Shakespeare knew, a fox “cherished and locked up” would still have “a wild trick of his ancestors”.