The fox is alternately demonised and sentimental-ised. Demonised in the country, perhaps sentimentalised by some people, not all, in the city suburbs. In France he is seen as the principal carrier of rabies. For a time, the spread has been checked by the laying of baits containing vaccinating substances. But now, for greater security, the idea is that contraceptive baits should be laid for the foxes.
The magazine Le Chasseur Franca is gives details of the make up of the oral vaccine which would inhibit the development of sperm in the male so that it cannot fertilise the female egg. The effect would only last for two years, it is written. (How many live more than two years?) The claim is that it would affect only foxes and not other animals. The scientist in charge of the project is quoted as saying that further studies have to be done before launching the baits in the country. They are, apparently, in the form of tablets, appetising to foxes. He is not exaggerating when he says there are problems: technical and ethical. Can you sterilise a population of wild animals? He might add that the scientists would have to be absolutely sure that only foxes would be affected. Not dogs, for example. Nor other wild life.
How much of a nuisance is the fox here? Now that not every farm has a chicken coop? Its main food is rabbit, young hare, maybe ground nesting birds and their eggs. Rats, mice? The fox is, as Fairley puts it, a gastronomic opportunist. He won't kill a lamb, but he'll eat at a dead one, or the afterbirth. He will easily switch to food from city dustbins, and has been doing so for decades, perhaps centuries.
In France, again according to our magazine, six cubs per year is the average there for a couple of foxes. But here, Fairley tells us, (An Irish Beast Book), Blackstaff Press, from one whelping season to another, one out of two adults dies and three out of every four cubs. Few foxes live more than four years.
A fox story from a reader of the English Field of several decades ago. A fox was seen to enter a pond backwards, carrying something white in its mouth. In the middle of the pond he slowly sank out of sight, leaving the white object on the surface, and trotted off. (They never seen to walk or amble, always to trot.)
The white object floating in the water aroused the curiosity of the onlooker. He used a long stick to draw it in. It was sheeps' wool, and swarming with fleas. Clever fox, clever fleas.