http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/10251349.stm
unbelievable story this one. Poor family.
EDIT: That’s a real fox btw. Not forumosa’s own poet laureate
Strange story. I guess the more people encroach onto the habitats of other creatures the more we should expect there will be occasional conflicts. Duh. But that was an odd one.
On a related note, small kids and pets are often attacked by coyotes in Southern California, where millions of suburban dwellers have moved into vast tracts built on top of the coyotes’ habitat (it’s an amazing thing to see how those So Cal suburbs are built, not a house or two at a time, but several hundred houses simultaneously on top of a vast swath of land that’s been cleared of all living things and bulldozed; no wonder the animals come back, where else are they supposed to go).
[quote]Melissa Rowley left her children playing in the front yard for only a moment to step into her house.
When she came back a coyote was dragging her daughter away.
It was the third time in five days a coyote had posed a threat to a small child in Southern California, San Bernardino Sheriff’s spokeswoman Arden Wiltshire said.
The coyote grabbed the 2-year-old by the head and tried to drag her towards the street in the mountain community of Lake Arrowhead on Tuesday.
When Rowley came out of the house and ran toward her daughter, the animal released the girl and ran away.
Rowley took her daughter to a hospital where the toddler was treated for several puncture wounds to the head and neck area, and a laceration on her mouth. [/quote]
abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4811654&page=1
We lived in San Diego and our cat was killed by a coyote in the dry, bushy hills behind our house. And, a family of foxes lived on our hill and gave birth there, and we had the great pleasure of watching them over the years, sometimes from the kitchen with binoculars, sometimes just sitting out on the back deck. And sometimes our cat would go exploring on the hillside and encounter the foxes, with both animals being fascinated but having a healthy respect for the other, so they would sit entranced watching from a distance and not attacking each other.
The coyotes were bigger than the foxes, though, and a bigger threat to babies and cats and dogs. While lots of pets and few babies were killed by coyotes there I never heard of foxes doing the same.
Fox, you naughty man! Back to Neihu, immediately!
Don’t make me smack you!
Interestingly enough, the highest concentration of foxes in Denmark is in Copenhagen, IE I grew up in a suburb, which was gradually built up from 1880-1930, mainly freestanding houses in standard size gardens, but some apartment blocks too. Inner suburban.
I saw foxes there, especially early morning. My nbeighbor broke the local regulations by arising chickens. The foxes sorted that out as well in no time.
The foxes eat garbage, you have a high concentration of birds as everybody feed them, and the cats will at times also end up on the menu.