Garden wildlife falling prey to hungry foxes
SIR – John and Deborah Reilly (Letters, May 29) are members of the fox fan club, leaving food for the animals in their garden.
However, alarming figures that show the loss of most other wildlife might have something to do with the propensity of foxes, badgers and grey squirrels to kill and eat everything smaller than them.
None of my children have ever heard a nightingale, skylark, nightjar, curlew or pipit; nor have they ever seen a dormouse, vole, hedgehog, snake or even a newt. John Martin
Hawkhurst, Kent
SIR – I would be delighted if Mr and Mrs Reilly, in Kingston upon Thames, could visit my garden in neighbouring Surbiton to clear the mess left by scavenging urban foxes. Then we would be able to walk on the grass to feed the birds and watch the squirrels dig up the bulbs. Margaret Hodgkinson
Surbiton, Surrey
SIR – It is easy to be sentimental about foxes when, like the one in your photograph, they are curled up sunbathing.
However, if your cat had been attacked by one – as ours was – you might feel differently. The fox cornered her and grabbed her by the ankle as she tried to escape, and she is now a tripod following the amputation of her hind leg. The veterinary surgeon said she sees many such injuries in urban environments.
Another family cat nearby was torn to shreds just before Christmas by a gang of foxes. Give me the “sterilised environment” condemned by Mr and Mrs Reilly any day of the week. Jane Richardson
Chislehurst, Kent
SIR – My daughter has created a small wildflower garden, near Hackney in east London, specifically designed to attract bees and other insects.
Repeatedly, her borders and plants are tunnelled into and dug up by a family of urban foxes. Consequently, the garden is threatened with becoming “sterilised surroundings devoid of [non-fox] nature”. Gerald de Lacey
London W11
SIR – Our friend’s neighbour regularly leaves out food for birds and urban foxes, as a result of which they and their two neighbours now have a problem with rats. Jan Ritchie
Torquay, Devon