Photo above from the Wildlife Rehab Daytona siteI love foxes. Most people roll their eyes when I announce this because here in Australia, foxes are regarded as predators. Certainly, I'll admit, I live in an urban area and I have never directly experienced a fox attack. But - and this has occured to me about rabbits too - foxes were an introduced species to Australia. They were brought out here in the 1870s to amuse the gentry by way of fox hunts. Then they had the temerity to breed (the foxes that is, not the gentry)! Now, I'm fairly sure that those first foxes didn't ask to come to Australia. They were brought out here solely for human entertainment. Then, once here, they made their way as best they could, as with all species - including our own. I found it very interesting that in searching Australian sites on the topic, I came up with phrases like "Australia's worst predator!" but at the Wildlife Rehab site at Daytona (Florida) it said, "they are...very shy and rarely bother anyone". I would be interested to know why there is this difference in opinion on foxes, considering the red fox was an introduced species to the US too - I am presuming it is primarily a matter of different habitats, but a number of parts of North America are similar to Australia. Clearly, I am no fox expert. I just love foxes.
Hi Feronia,
ReplyDeletein the Odenwald, thre always were foxes. They had their burrows here only some hundret feet away, but they are very, very shy, and I saw them not very often, and haven't seen one for years. I never heart they attack people - they are smaller than a middle dog and eat mostly mice and rats!
We had a red cat when I was young who lived in a burrow with the foxes before it came to us - this is not so unusual, foxes and wild cats does not harm each other.
The only problem with them was they spread rabies. But there were great campains of immunisation which were sucessful.
I like them, too.
Bodecea
so.... bodecea told me, you opened up a "darker" blog, so i had to check that out.
ReplyDeletei´ll keep watching this :)
and - foxes should be good predators for australia, hunting rats, mice and rabbits.
as you write in your first post in this blog - a person needs his dark side. i think nature needs a dark side too, to keep balance. only "fluffy bunnys" (in a dual meaning) ruin things, too.
(P.S.: could you choose a lighter shade of gray for your texts?)
WirrLicht
Hi Bodecea and WirrLicht,
ReplyDeleteGood to see you both here in the Dark Wood! What a lovely image of the cat and the foxes living together in the burrow! Yes, nature's dark side should be acknowledged as much as the light because it's reality, it's existence. Fluffy bunnys are trouble...
Sometimes, even here in Europe, Foxes are seen as pests. It is an anthropocentric point of view in trying to apply human concepts of "good" and "bad" on animals. Like every species, Foxes only try to survive. When carried to a foreign continent, they won't say "gee, let us be careful with the local wildlife, they're rare". Every responsibility on eventual problems with over-population is on humans. It is certainly not appropriate to talk about Foxes in a way as if they were "bad" or "guilty".
ReplyDeleteFoxes are beautiful, wild animals. I like them too.
Actually, I think it's their wildness that I find beautiful, Diana. I feel incredibly sorry for them in this country - so often they are described as "evil", "cunning" and "sly" and the hanging of their dead bodies along fences as 'warnings' to other foxes is just plain disturbing. Thanks for dropping by the Dark Wood, too :)
ReplyDelete