Most people are aware, I think, that in describing an encounter with an urban fox, they are required by law to at some stage reach for the expression “bold as brass”. As in, “I’ve just seen a fox on the high street. He just stood there looking at me, bold as brass.”
The custom of yoking together a sighting of a fox in the city with surprise at his audacity must, presumably, hark back to a time when urban foxes were not as bold as brass. At some point, when they first migrated from the countryside in the Thirties, unused to human contact, they must have been secretive creatures, expected to scuttle away at the first sight of anything on two legs. And when they started not to so scuttle, this was interpreted as unusually challenging and impudent behaviour.
I wonder how much longer the non-scuttling, non-furtive tendencies of city foxes will be regarded as atypical. I see a fox every fortnight or so – different foxes (I assume), in different parts of London – and not one of them ever does a runner. They stop, they stare, they check me out (as in, check me out for signs of hostility, not check me out for potential sexual compatibility, at least I don’t think that’s what they’re doing) and then they go calmly about their foxy business.
As bold as brass.
Last week a fully grown man became the first known victim of a vulpine mugging. He’d just been to Tesco in Orpington, Kent, when a fox cornered him up an alley and forced him to hand over his garlic bread. Foxes are generally supposed to weigh about 15lb. Two weeks ago a 38lb fox was shot and killed in Aberdeenshire. Stories of foxes sneaking into houses are commonplace. Long story short: foxes are not only getting braver, they’re getting bigger.
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Experts think there are about 33,000 foxes living in British cities. Each spring, they produce about 54,000 cubs. These foxes have got a more or less unlimited food supply, from refuse, from prey, from batty old grannies putting sausages out on the front step. What’s more, now that the stray dog population is much lower than it used to be, the urban fox has no natural predators.
Apart from us.
Foxes have had this sarcoptic mange thing going on, that’s kept their numbers down, yet now that they’re over that whole lumps of fur falling out and dropping down dead issue, answer me this: what’s to stop them not only getting bigger and braver, but more numerous? A lot more numerous? What’s to stop their numbers increasing every bit as swiftly as their size, courage and all-round bold-as-brassness?
For many millennia, the global human population grew very slowly. A century ago, it was still under two billion. But then it rocketed up to today’s figure of seven billion, because of more food, better sanitation and vaccination. That’s the final piece in the jigsaw for foxes: once they’ve stopped crapping anywhere they feel like and sorted out their healthcare, we’re doomed.
Before long you’re going to get in from work, go to put the kettle on and there at the kitchen table there’ll be half a dozen enormous foxes, each wearing their smart checked foxy waistcoats, their great big bushy tails poking up in a line, eating what you thought was going to be your tea. “Wanna make something of it?” the biggest fox will ask, all truculent.
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What to do? Local councils gave up some time ago. Their advice is basically: “Get used to it.” Well, I don’t want to have to get used to foxes taking over my house, raiding my fridge and getting up to all sorts in my bed. I want to act now before it’s too late.
I’m not allowed to poison them, and as everyone knows, I’m not allowed to set dogs on them. I am allowed to shoot them, if I could get a licence for a rifle, but as they’re pretty strict about gun control in Hackney, I don’t rate my chances. I’d probably miss in any case.
So I’ve decided to set up an urban foxhunt. Not with a pack of hounds, I hasten to add, although, as I understand it, even after the Hunting Act 2004 you are still allowed to flush a fox with up to two dogs, so I’d better get a couple of those or we won’t be able to find the buggers. I don’t want horses either, although I may go for some tailored red jackets as a nod to tradition. People love a colourful spectacle, don’t they?
My initial scheme is for the hunt to be mounted on bicycles, armed with mallets. So maybe it’s not so much a foxhunt, more a variant of polo. Fox polo. Planning is still at an early stage, I need to sort out the details; still, I think it might catch on. It has to, or pretty soon it’ll be us living in holes and rooting through bins.