Beautiful urban foxes

There's a mini-tabloid storm brewing against urban foxes because, apparently, a fox wandered into someone's home bit a couple of kids for kicks and then wandered off again. The papers do not record whether the fox's friends filmed the incident on their mobile phones, or whether the fox had arrived in London from Poland in a secret compartment in a lorry.

Whatever the ins and outs of the case, and let's assume it's all true, this would make it an extremely rare occurrence.

The Guardian tells us that "Vulpes vulpes has long fascinated and repelled us", which is news to me. Who is this "us" who have long been "repelled" by beautiful urban foxes? Bed wetting Guardian journalists no doubt.

The article ends with a list of ways of "off foxing the fox" which are basically a number of ways of moving the fox into your neighbour's garden.

Thankfully the Guardian's eco-wing has a better article by the sainted Terry Nutkins which a) casts doubt on whether this was a fox at all and b) reminds us that foxes not go out of their way to harm humans, the harm is purely a one-way process. Well worth a read.

The BBC reports that the authorities went and found a fox and killed it in retaliation but they also quote a fox expert, John Bryant, who says that a fox attack of this kind makes no sense what-so-ever.

Whatever really happened in this case I'm concerned that, in typical knee jerk fashion, we may be facing a reprisal fox cull which will make no one any the safer but do yet more to purge our cities of some of its most delightful inhabitants.

n.b. I wondered whether foxes ate rats in order for me to make a case that they were useful, but wikipedia seems to think they mainly eat insects and worms, but whether we can trust this source or not I don't know as it doesn't even mention their main diet, discarded kebabs.