Officers and paramedics were called to a house in Homerton, east London, on Saturday night to reports that the animal had attacked the nine-month-old sisters.
A police source said the fox apparently entered through a door on the ground floor that had been left open for ventilation, before attacking the twins in an upstairs room. Their four-year-old brother, who was also sleeping upstairs, escaped injury.
Police said the little girls are in a "serious but stable condition" at the Royal London Hospital. They both suffered arm wounds and one of the girls is believed to have facial injuries.The above upsets me immensley and it is not just because I love foxes so much but that I did not think that people could sink so low.
After the attack, pest controllers set fox traps in the back garden. A fox was discovered in one of the devices on Sunday night and was humanely destroyed by a vet later
I honestly do not think it was a fox.
Foxes are very timid animals, they do not like to be around humans so I really do not see one going into a house that to them will stink of humans.
As it was an urban fox I also do not think that it would be starved and thus I have no idea why it would attack a human, I mean we do not have rabies in this country and the only documented fox attacks I have heard of have been by rabid foxes.
Occasionally the press reports attacks on children that are said to be by foxes, but very often the bite wounds do not appear to be typical fox bites. It is not impossible that a child could be bitten by a fox but, if it occurs, it is extremely rare. In comparison, the risk of injury from domestic dogs and cats is very much higher. For example, in the USA about 5 million people are bitten by dogs each year and 15 to 20 people die from dog bites yearly. Most of the victims are children. Similarly, there are more than 400,000 cat bites each year in the USA. There are no good statistics from Britain, but it is likely that the number of dog and cat bites is around a fifth of those recorded in the USA. Even in countries where rabies is present, humans are much more likely to be bitten by a rabid domestic dog than by a fox.(Above quote taken from http://www.thefoxwebsite.org/urbanfoxes/urbanconflict.html)
The risks of people being attacked by a fox are negligible compared to the risks of being attacked by a domestic dog or cat.
I honestly think it may well be a case of 'Oh no the dogs bitten the kids, say it is a wild animal so the dog is not put down.'.
I had to post about this as I feel people are to quick to blame the fox, the wolf and all other animals they they do not understand. I think it is deeply disturbing that just on one persons word and people are ready to go on a killing spree as they are affraid of what they do not understand...
Trapping and killing a random urban fox who may or may not have had anything what so ever to do with this is plain wrong and it upsets me immensely!
My heart is heavy and my head is held low as I am ashamed to be a human. I am however glad that Harry and Elspeth are part of my life and more importantly my daughters life and thus she will not turn out like any of the people involved in this.
Foxes are so misunderstood, it's terrible. :(
ReplyDeleteWhen we had Kenti we would either get funny looks or people would tell us that "she's not a tame animal, why do you have one? You know she's going to attack you.". It made me so sad that people would think that! When we took her to the vet, there was probably only 1 or 2 people that didn't want to go near her, but everyone else wanted to love on her and play with her.
I would have a fox again. I loved having one in my home and loved having one as a pet. I'm so glad you have Harry and Elspeth in your life. I hope that someday Washington state will change their mind and allow them as pets.
This is horrible! I felt outraged myself when I read this. I cannot stand how humanity always fears what it doesn't understand.
ReplyDeleteI agree- foxes are so shy! They do not go out of theri way to be around people at all! Even tame pet foxes are shy!
ReplyDeleteStrangely these kinds of stories regularly surface. I zould say it's an old urban myth, but a very malicious one, rehashed and redressed a little bit each time and put out for just one reason: to instill fear and hatred toward foxes. I hope you realise there are people actively lobbying to reintroduce fox mauling, similar stories appeared when they were about to ban it.
ReplyDeleteYes tervicz-renard I am aware and it angers me so much!
ReplyDeleteThere are also more and more people jumping on the band wagon saying that foxes have attatcked them though they offer no evadence.
Stuff like this just breaks my heart.
ReplyDeleteWhere I live, it's not foxes that get the blame for this sort of thing, though. It's coyotes. Which is kind of strange, as foxes are much more common in this area, but almost any mysterious animal attack is blamed on coyotes.
It does seem weird that a fox would just come into a house, not even look for food and go straight to these little girls bedroom in the middle of the night and attack them? At first when I heard about this I was sure the fox had rabies, because no normal and healthy wild animal would do that. Maybe it was a rare and once in a lifetime occurrence. Was there any comparison done whether it was fox bites or dog bites?
ReplyDeleteBut I myself can not say that it was not the fox because I do not know the details. But I believe that there's a lot more to that story than those parents were telling the press.
For all they know it could've been a different fox in the area and not the one they caught. And who are those people to leave a door open in the middle of the night? Especially with children! You never know what crazy, demented people are walking around at night.
For example, We all know the crazies come out a night, like when you go to Walmart at 3am and there's the weird looking people who walk slow and stare hard... lol.
I also believe though that this incidence with a wild fox should not reflect on foxes that are pets. That would be like comparing a starving and wild/stray dog to your lovable and caring house pet.