Foxes

Foxes are well adapted to both town and country life and will live and breed in both environments.
Wherever you live there is therefore a good chance that foxes at least occasionally pass though your garden.
By day foxes often shelter in burrows, known as earths or dens. Sometimes they will lie up in secluded spots above ground. Urban dens may be under garden sheds or greenhouse.
Female foxes ( vixens ) generally give birth to their cubs in an earth. Where cubs have been reared in the earth the vegetation may be trampled nearby, due to the foxes playing, and food remains may be scattered about.
Urban foxes feed on an abundance of varied types of food. The greatest bulk being scavenged food and earthworms. The scavenged food conies primarily from bird tables, compost heaps and where people deliberately feed foxes. Much of the remainder comes from scraps of food thrown away in the street or on open refuse tips. Fruit is very important seasonallv, especially apples and plums, and rats, mice, voles and hedgehogs are eaten too.

The Council will NOT offer a treatment for foxes but would prefer to discourage the fox population from increasing without phvsically harming them. This is achieved by advising residents to stop doing things that might encourage foxes.

These include:
* Not feeding foxes
* Not to leave untidy areas in their gardens where foxes could dig earths
* Not to leave available food around in the garden e.g. scraps of food on compost heaps, bird tables etc.

If these measures fail, the department can give advice as to contractors who offer a specialist pest control service for foxes.

Select for more information about urban foxes at www.thefoxwebsite.org