Humane but useless

The following conversation with Lambeth council pest-control unit took place a few days before a fox attacked two babies. I had rung them to ask for advice about how to control the hordes of foxes roaming my street like hoodies. As I reported last week, the initial signs of a sensible response were not encouraging. Then an animal warden got in touch. Let’s call her Kelly, for she had a cheerful, suburban name a bit like that.

‘We don’t remove foxes,’ said Kelly, ‘but we give advice about how to deter them. If you’ve a family of foxes living in your garden, I can send you some information.’

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Do you mean to tell me some poor sods have whole families of foxes living in their gardens? Because I’m just complaining about them sitting on my doorstep.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Kelly. ‘Some people have them living in their garden sheds.’

‘Blimey, you must be worried.’

‘Not really. There’s been a lot of research done on London foxes and the numbers are quite stable. If we came along and removed them, it wouldn’t help because more would just come in. The only way is to deter them.’

‘How on earth would I do that?’

‘There are products on the market.’

‘Like bullets and poison, you mean?’

‘No. I’m talking about Scoot.’

‘Scoot?’

‘Yes. Scoot. And Get Off My Garden.’

‘Get Off My…Oh, dear. Look, these things are queuing up outside my house. They’re dangerous. Can’t you just come and remove them?’

‘My job is catching stray dogs. If I started catching foxes, I would just be trapping foxes all day long.’

‘Doesn’t that tell you something? Have you looked into why they’re taking over?’

‘Well, their life is a lot easier in London.