Fox Attack Twins

Started by GeekFury, July 01, 2010, 01:31:37 PM

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GeekFury

BBC News - Mother's 'nightmare' after baby twins 'mauled' by fox

After the news here in the UK about urban foxes attacking infant twins and badly injuring them, the perants have been getting death threats and accusations of lien due to the foxes in the areas being put down. While I admit they had left the door to the garden open, the fox came in, went up two flights of stairs then attacked the two baby girls, that if you ask me is reason enough to deal with them seriously. Ok I can understand foxes are lovely to look at but they are pests simply in urban areas. Also if they attack a human they should be put down or controlled some how, I mean if a dog attacks a human they're destroyed, but if it's a fox that attacks a human it's the humans fault.

Whats E's view on this? Cull the foxes legally and humanly? Or are the perants at fault?

Wolfy

They don't need to be put down, if it can be helped. They need to be captured and released away from the community.

electrichigh

The problem with capturing uban foxes and releasing them in the countryside is that they wont survive, they do not having the hunting skills to do so any more. At the end of the day there are more than a million urban foxes in the UK and there are only attacks this this one average once every five years. The most likley thing that happened was it was a cub that got scared by the twins and got panicked and attacked.

Most people have dogs, but one dog attack does not lead to ones around being put down do they, you are more likley to be attacked by your neighbours dog than an urban fox. We had urban foxes appear on my street about two years ago, normally they were pretty good at keeping them off our university campus but shockingly enough you know the mice and rats dissapeared when the foxes arrived. Recent reserch in cities has shown leaven urban foxes to hunt in these areas has reduced the mice and rat problem significantly.

Not to mention the land we are speading in to is THEIR LAND why should be be relocating them when we are the ones building on their homes? Considering what we do to them I think they've taken it pretty bloody well really. There is absoloutly no need for a cull at all, if anything you don't want them in your area you need to lean to stop leaving rubbish out and how to not encourage them. The urban fox populan at the moment is steady, they have reached the lands carrying capacity and at the end of the day we are just going to have to share out space with them. We're the ones that are taking over the land, we should deal with the concequences of that.

Xenophile

Cull 'em. Capture and release would be a waste of resources as the population would only increase within a couple of years, even without the potential migration of those captured foxes returning to their old territories, which is the suburbia.
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Aviva

My point of view.

The couple involved in this case have had a vendetta against foxes for about a decade. Pre attack insisting the foxes in their location were to be culled. They also seemingly knew they had foxes in the garden yet they still left the back door open and the children's bed room door open.

Though what happened to those children is terrible I keep wondering why if they had such major concerns did they leave the children bedroom door open.

I have two cats and live in area where other cats could walk in my house. Once my kids are in bed the doors are closed because of the risks of a animal sneaking in.

As someone stated before when a dog attacks a human (which is far more often than a fox) only the dog that attacked is killed not six or seven more of them.

Also perhaps the reason so many appeared is becasue they were following the scents of where their mother/cubs/fatehr lead and got killed.

Just as we would go searching for our parents/children as do they and they got killed for it and no one can even gurantee it was the actual fox that attacked.

On one other note, intially when this was first released seemingly there was two foxes, then only one. The fox refused to move when the parents found it. The adad had to carry the children out which is understandle. Then if the fox was still in the room why not have locked it into keep it for when it could of been dealt with and it would of been the right one.

I personally do not agree with culling them based on this attack though I do agree their numbers have to be controlled.

Look at the case of Mr Bird a few weeks ago he killed 13 people and injured twenty five. No one is asking for the human race to be culled because of what he did are they?




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Florence

I don't want to sound like the hippy "love all animals" but it DOES sound like, if they knew there was a fox problem, they should be more careful with keeping the house nice and closed up. Then again, I live in the US, where the idea of leaving your door unlocked, let alone open, is like practically hanging a sign on your door saying "steal my stuff".

I mean, if it's a serious problem, then by all means, you have to do what you have to do to survive, but if it's just because these people were careless, there's no need to all genocidal on them.
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Leo

Why can't they just kill the fox responsible, collect the rest and put them in a cage? It's not humane to just kill everything that hurts us.

It's this kind of thinking that caused rat infestations in some places in the past... because snakes were gone! :/
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Jude

Animals don't make moral decisions, they're not capable of it, so punishing the Fox that attacked the twins in particular for doing it would be folly.  Furthermore, how do you suppose they identify that individual Fox if it has already been escaped?  They can't exactly have a line up of the suspects and make 'em do the perp walk.

This is all about keeping humans safe, humans are far more important than animals (which I think any sane individual can agree), and the process of transplanting the animals would be costly and adversely affect the ecosystem in which they're put.  What so many fail to take into account is that if we put a large concentration of foxes out in the country, what do you think that's gonna do the fluffy bunny population in that area?  Animals kill animals, it's what they're wired to do, and yet somehow when we do it--and we are animals--we're acting out of the natural order?

Now, I'm not saying we shoot them, then hang their carcasses from the lampposts as a sign to any future predators not to screw with us, but they need to be put down as effectively as possible for the safety of the human beings in the area.

p.s. Animals can't own land; that's silly.  Furthermore, there was a time when Foxes did not exist, so this notion that they were always there is kind of silly.  Before them there was another species, and before that another, going all the way back to bacteria.  If you want to get technical, we stole this entire planet and the very materials we're made up of from single-celled orgasms, so I guess the next time you get sick, you shouldn't take anti-biotics or anything to fight the disease; after all the illness is just reclaiming what it's due...?

Florence

Quote from: Jude on July 02, 2010, 09:57:02 PM
Animals don't make moral decisions, they're not capable of it, so punishing the Fox that attacked the twins in particular for doing it would be folly.  Furthermore, how do you suppose they identify that individual Fox if it has already been escaped?  They can't exactly have a line up of the suspects and make 'em do the perp walk.

This is all about keeping humans safe, humans are far more important than animals (which I think any sane individual can agree), and the process of transplanting the animals would be costly and adversely affect the ecosystem in which they're put.  What so many fail to take into account is that if we put a large concentration of foxes out in the country, what do you think that's gonna do the fluffy bunny population in that area?  Animals kill animals, it's what they're wired to do, and yet somehow when we do it--and we are animals--we're acting out of the natural order?

Now, I'm not saying we shoot them, then hang their carcasses from the lampposts as a sign to any future predators not to screw with us, but they need to be put down as effectively as possible for the safety of the human beings in the area.

p.s. Animals can't own land; that's silly.  Furthermore, there was a time when Foxes did not exist, so this notion that they were always there is kind of silly.  Before them there was another species, and before that another, going all the way back to bacteria.  If you want to get technical, we stole this entire planet and the very materials we're made up of from single-celled orgasms, so I guess the next time you get sick, you shouldn't take anti-biotics or anything to fight the disease; after all the illness is just reclaiming what it's due...?

I have to disagree. I admit, I'm a bit of a misanthrope, but I can't agree that humans are innately more important than animals. It's true we have the capacity for greatness for beyond other species, with vastly superior intellect and the ability to form abstract thoughts, but the fact is we hardly use these abilities enough to pat ourselves on the back and talk about how great we are.

That said, I do understand how nature works, and as a species we have every right to defend ourselves from other animals as they do from each other as well as us, but I do think, based on the information presented, this appears to be a situation in which killing isn't needed. People just need to learn to close their doors. If someone walks into your house and steals your stuff, you don't start killing your neighbors, you learn to lock your door. It's the same basic principal.
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Jude

Hardly use these abilities?

Right now I am communicating to you using a series of pictographic symbols which represent sounds which when uttered in concert create words that affix themselves to abstract concepts.  We both have the same association of each sound to each concept regardless of the fact that I have never met you and probably never will.  Furthermore, we are communicating across an indefinite amount of space, by electronic impulses decoded into a sequence of complicated 1's and 0's, literally millions of digits long simply to translate this one message, across thousands of miles of electronic equipment, by use of complicated devices pieced together by materials harvested from around the globe, all designed, tested, and made feasible by humans.

If that doesn't leave you in awe of the things we have accomplished, and continue to, I don't know what will.

Florence

As a people we've completed massive accomplishments, but I meant on an individual level. Your average Joe isn't going to find the cure for cancer. Our great achievements have been the result of select few great minds working in concert. I don't mean to imply that we shouldn't care about people who aren't going to create monumental achievements, or that they don't matter, I'm simply explaining what I mean when I say we don't use that capacity for greatness that we're so proud of as often as we like to think.

It's not even that I think humans aren't impressively built, either, I just don't believe our capacity for intelligence gives our lives some inherent greater meaning. Do I think we should die rather than kill wild animals? Of course not, just like every other species on the planet, we'll defend ourselves whether it be from foxes, wolves, bears or even just bacteria, and I have no problem with that, I just disagree that humans are intrinsically more important.
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Noelle

Humans are more important to humans -- or at least on a basic level, should be. Anything on the foodchain elsewhere in biology has little concern but for itself; after all, infestations wouldn't be an issue if all animals were capable of concern. Rats don't care that they're eating the hell out of the local ecosystem and effectively destroying the delicate balance that will likely screw things up further along -- they just want to eat.
Besides, it's not really the worst thing that could happen, especially given the fact that humans have advanced so far intellectually that we actually have the capacity to go against nature and give a damn about things beneath us, even when they bite at our own kind. Other species aren't so kind.

Aviva

If on the basis on keeping people safe you kill everything of that species for one/two attacks we should of started culling ourselves years ago as we are far more dangerous to people that animals are.

We have evolved to care about those as some people state "below" us.

Should the fox that did the attack been dealt with? Aye.

Should animal levels be monitored and controlled to prevent the eco system completely going crazy? Aye

Though then again perhaps we should start setting a number of how many births of humans there are a year and deaths to make sure we do not wipe out the planet to feed all of us.

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Leo

Duh....

Let's all grab a double-barrel rifle each, go out there and kill every bloody living thing that isn't human so we'll feel safe. Since we seem unable to keep ourselves safe with all our technology and intellect unless we exterminate other beings.
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Jude

The population explosion that is problematic for sustainability isn't happening in first-world countries, and the leaders of the emerging nations in which it is a problem are making an attempt to deal with it.  Europe and the United States isn't having a population density problem whatsoever and still has plenty of room to grow--responsibly, and responsibly is the key.  Your point is well-taken that it would be idiotic for us to have such a dominion over our environment that we transform it into something that can no longer sustain us, which would probably occur if we acted in short-term human interest unfettered by practicality and the long-term effects of rapid industrialization.  Thankfully, most of the world is starting to realize how much of a problem that is and the initial projections on global warming were off by a fairly sizable magnitude.

Now, I'm not, and never have, advocated that we round up every fox on the face of the planet and destroy them.  No one is saying that all threats to human existence should be eliminated outright.  A targeted cull in an urban or suburban area is a completely different scenario than that exaggerated premise.  Comparing killing a handful of urban foxes in a particular area that have proven themselves to be dangerous to killing all things on the planet that could be a threat to humanity, is like comparing putting Bernie Madoff in jail to the creation of a Concentration Camp because he's Jewish.

Predators that can be a threat to humans have no business living in an area densely populated by humans.  If this was the country, I would agree, a cull would not make sense, but they are urban foxes, which arguably shouldn't exist to begin with.

Aviva

Again I dare point out that there are more attacks by domesticated dogs than there actually is foxes.

Again when that happens only that dog is killed. So would that actually mean technically dogs are not actually meant to be domesticated and should run wild?

As for the reason of foxes in urban areas maybe they would not be if there was not ample food for them to get at and they would have to go to the wild to find food IE rabbits etc..but if they did that then they would be killed because they would have too much effect on the Eco system.

Either way they get culled.
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Jude

There are more domesticated dogs than urban foxes however.  Maybe in absolute numbers there are more dog attacks, but if you look at the percentages it's a different story.  Percentages are what matters, because that's what measures how dangerous a particular animal is.

Noelle

Quote from: Aviva on July 03, 2010, 04:49:34 PM
As for the reason of foxes in urban areas maybe they would not be if there was not ample food for them to get at and they would have to go to the wild to find food IE rabbits etc..but if they did that then they would be killed because they would have too much effect on the Eco system.

So are you saying that...it's our fault for creating places that animals come to because the food is readily available? Maybe I'm mistaking your point here, but just because there's ample food here doesn't mean they're welcome to it. There's not much we can do to prevent it from happening all together, especially given the abundance of food we have as well as the way we dispose of it, but these animals are not domesticated, do not have an owner we can go to for justice, and so when we're attacked in our element, it makes sense that we would see the local population as potentially unpredictable/hostile.

Besides, in your example, you're both assuming that A) overpopulation is a given if an animal is left in the wild, and B) that controlling overpopulation is a malicious act. We have deer hunting seasons because if we don't, deer do overpopulate fast if the food chain isn't equipped to handle the surplus and then put the local ecosystem in a bad place.

Aviva

No what I am trying to point out is for the fox there is a no win/win situation for them.

They come to the cities where food is ample they are seen as predators etc and based on two attacks suddenly number one enemy.

Yet out in the wild they are also culled understandably to keep the population down to prevent the destruction of the eco system.

As my partner told me it comes down to this survival of the fittest...or who ever has the bigger gun. Sad fact of life but true.

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Aviva

Quote from: Jude on July 03, 2010, 05:02:04 PM
There are more domesticated dogs than urban foxes however.  Maybe in absolute numbers there are more dog attacks, but if you look at the percentages it's a different story.  Percentages are what matters, because that's what measures how dangerous a particular animal is.

Aye percentages matter but my point is even domesticated animals can attack those they have been round for how ever many years. Once more in this case only the dog that attacked gets destroyed not more of that breed.
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Xenophile

Quote from: Aviva on July 04, 2010, 07:44:11 AM
No what I am trying to point out is for the fox there is a no win/win situation for them.

They come to the cities where food is ample they are seen as predators etc and based on two attacks suddenly number one enemy.

Yet out in the wild they are also culled understandably to keep the population down to prevent the destruction of the eco system.

As my partner told me it comes down to this survival of the fittest...or who ever has the bigger gun. Sad fact of life but true.

The urban environment is an unnatural environment for the foxes, and the situation changes. In the forest, there needs to be a stable population, but in the urban and suburban environment there exists no such doctrine to maintain a "natural and healthy" population. Culling the population in the urban areas will have minimal effects on the natural population, in the wild, at the very worst.

Maybe this incident was the catalyst needed for more large scaled action against the fox population, and a duly needed one.
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Leo

The option to relocate animals to a facility or to their natural environment is always there. But it seems it's somehow more appealing to just kill them off.

I think I would be waiting by the foxes with a shotgun and a lot of spare ammo if I lived in that town. Why? Think of it like this :

Bears don't walk around in urban areas like dogs or cats or foxes. Because a bear and a human population next to each other would 100% result with a high casualty rate. If a kind of animal is living in an urban area, that means they are more on the harmless side and less on the harmful side against humans -if that makes sense. Killing tens or maybe hundreds of foxes is not the answer to a single or a few fox attacks, you just relocate them so no more accidents happen, you don't exterminate their entire population in the area.

Plus, this;
Quote from: Xenophile on July 04, 2010, 09:10:42 AM
The urban environment is an unnatural environment for the foxes, and the situation changes. In the forest, there needs to be a stable population, but in the urban and suburban environment there exists no such doctrine to maintain a "natural and healthy" population. Culling the population in the urban areas will have minimal effects on the natural population, in the wild, at the very worst.

is kinda lacking logic, if you don't mind me saying so. This is not an excuse or a justification for your case, not even close. Based on what you say, we should also hunt every bird, cat and dog in urban areas because... wait for it... it's not their natural environment. Then maybe, theoretically, it would be ok to determine what is "natural environment" for humans depending on the environment the majority of our species lives in and legalize murder in areas outside of the "natural environment"?

I'm sorry, but to me, killing those animals makes NO sense.
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Xenophile

Quote from: Leo on July 04, 2010, 09:58:54 AM
The option to relocate animals to a facility or to their natural environment is always there. But it seems it's somehow more appealing to just kill them off.

I think I would be waiting by the foxes with a shotgun and a lot of spare ammo if I lived in that town. Why? Think of it like this :

Bears don't walk around in urban areas like dogs or cats or foxes. Because a bear and a human population next to each other would 100% result with a high casualty rate. If a kind of animal is living in an urban area, that means they are more on the harmless side and less on the harmful side against humans -if that makes sense. Killing tens or maybe hundreds of foxes is not the answer to a single or a few fox attacks, you just relocate them so no more accidents happen, you don't exterminate their entire population in the area.

Plus, this;
is kinda lacking logic, if you don't mind me saying so. This is not an excuse or a justification for your case, not even close. Based on what you say, we should also hunt every bird, cat and dog in urban areas because... wait for it... it's not their natural environment. Then maybe, theoretically, it would be ok to determine what is "natural environment" for humans depending on the environment the majority of our species lives in and legalize murder in areas outside of the "natural environment"?

I'm sorry, but to me, killing those animals makes NO sense.

The justification for that argument is that the urban environment is  an unnatural environment, and the fox has no business in a habitat outside it's own natural habitat. That is a very general statement that applies to all species.
The English country is special in this case because many of the natural enemies to the fox have been exterminated form the English isles, and the only thing that keeps the population to a reasonable level is just man.

Either way, we have to take responsibility not only to the consequences of exterminated the bear and the wolf and and the lynx and the hawk take their role in the ecosystem and cull the populations of various species now and then. This is common practice, and a necessary practice.

If it becomes necessary to hunt "every bird, cat and dog" because the population is too high, then yes, they should.

And why do you use the term "murder" when we're talking about animals anyway? Hunting and culling is needed to avoid far worse casualties to the ecosystem then the occasional killings of a few animals every year.
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Jude

If you relocate the foxes to a different area, it's going to cost money and negatively impact the environments you're moving them to because it will mean an influx of omnivores to the area tipping the balance of the ecosystem.

Yes, we could build a facility for them, but all of that costs money and money equals human lives.  There is not an infinite supply of cash to go around for every little pet project people want to drum up, and there are far better things for it to be used on (such as body armor research for troops during this time of war in the Middle East, social programs during this global recession, or research on alternative energy resources which helps the entire planet in the long run).

It's far cheaper to kill them off.  Putting them somewhere means you have to take care of them, zoos probably won't accept them because of the environment in which they were raised (and because they are proven to be dangerous at this point), plus who's to say more people wouldn't be hurt trying to capture them to move them?

This is a simple matter of cost benefit analysis, and unless the Fox is an endangered speeches I'm not seeing the benefit to keeping them alive.

Leo

I was going to post something much longer, but I don't see the point in doing so.

But I'd like to emphasize that I used the term murder for humans, not animals.

Also, maybe it's just me, but I think some people are lacking a great deal of respect for the nature that spawned them and through the resources of which humanity is kept alive. Sure, how is killing foxes related to human survival? Right? But it appears to me that the kind of mentality that only cares about finance and war is the kind of mentality that decided hunting certain species to their extinction or polluting natural habitats is justified if it's good for business and humanity in a short sighted future. And it is this kind of mentality that is effectively killing the world, even if some would like to believe that is not true.

I'll respect you reasons for saying they should be killed, you do have a point, after all; even if I don't agree with it. I hope my reasons for saying they should be kept alive will receive equal courtesy. Au revoir, in another thread.
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