Re: Oh FFS... A better headline would be 'Humans reach new lows in cowardice'
Since the BBC report did say somebody had been bitten, that is an angle that needs checking. Did the fox have rabies? And if it did how did it get infected? But the failure to mention that risk is one of the things that can be counted against conspiracy claims. And if the report of somebody being bitten is true, the "think of the children" angle isn't stupid
There's been some pretty bogus claims about foxes. Most of the pressure to control them seems to come from people who do things like breeding pheasants to be released, bewildered, as targets for a "shooting estate". The biosecurity scares for chicken farming means that physical, essentially passive, security need to be used, and it all stops the foxes.
When I was in the farming business, there were some people who, frankly, scared me. I've had idiots with guns, out shooting game, walk out of the fog while I have been applying pesticides to a field. They didn't even bother to check whether any work was planned. And many hunts seem to be getting along better without foxes. There are people who enjoy the challenging riding across country, but don't want to kill anything.
And the sociopaths of this government—how else can you describe some Ministers without vulgarity—have revived the issue. The Countryside March was about a lot of things governments do to mess up rural people, but why have they latched on to the ability to kill foxes as the one they can fix?
And the ugly reality of wildlife is that local excesses of any species leads to lead to deaths from disease. Remember the urban foxes of Bristol? A wonderful documentary, but then they got thinned out by a disease outbreak.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
