"In animal-loving Britain, not all humans are as exasperated as Howard, whose daughter’s chickens keep getting slaughtered: Alan and June put out chicken livers for Miss Fox and her family while secretly filming them from cameras hidden in plant pots. They’ve obviously never witnessed the needless and wanton destruction a single fox can wreak on a killing spree." - Patricia Wynn Davies writing in the Telegraph TV review section
And Ms Wynn Davies obviously has no real understanding of animal behaviour. The way that foxes survive in the wild is to kill as much as they can in times of plenty, and bury it as a larder for use in leaner times. What seems superficially like a senseless orgy of destruction is in fact a useful survival strategy in the wild - but not for urban foxes, who haven't had time to evolve a new strategy that accounts for the existence of confined prey that cannot escape and is the property of vengeful humans!
A shame that she didn't bother to do just a little bit of research before committing pen to paper - but as hardly anyone seems to worry about getting their facts right these days, perhaps not very surprising. And how much more satisfying for those of limited attention span to read more sensational descriptions
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