Last week I spent two half days, and some time in a bar in between, with a bunch of RSPB site managers (or wardens as we used to call them!) talking about fox control.
We have over 200 nature reserves and we cull foxes on about 20 of them, so, as written before, we use fox control as a management option but not as a standard management prescription. Our main reason for fox control is where we have vulnerable populations of breeding waders such as lapwing, redshank and snipe and where we believe that foxes are making a big difference to their numbers or breeding success.
But getting out the rifle is not the only option - non-lethal methods may be more effective, cheaper and more acceptable to the public or to our staff. One option is fencing, and the results of some trials are described in the RSPB Reserves review for 2010 (see pages 34-35 of the document or pages 36-37 of the pdf). A couple of different fence types have been tested but both have electric strands. One advantage of fences is that, as well as foxes which we know can be important predators of waders nests, they also exclude badgers which are more occasional nest predators. Another advantage is that you aren't up late at night with a reifle trying to get a clean shot at a wary animal.
The results are encouraging but we are a cautious bunch so we aren't claiming anything yet. I can't see fences being very useful in the uplands but in lowland areas they may have a part to play. We'll see.
I live in the countryside and hardly ever see a fox. Most of my recent sightings have been in London on early mornings where just as the foxes seem very nonchalant about people, most Londoners seem very relaxed about urban foxes. I get quite excited when I see a fox - they are lovely animals. But I don't, personally, have any problem about a bit of fox control to protect birds of conservation importance.
But we, the RSPB, do take a particularly strict line on predator control on our own land. We don't use snares. We don't use dogs to flush foxes underground or above ground. And we try very hard not to shoot at times when we might kill lactating vixens with young cubs underground. Those constraints don't make fox control very easy compared with the job a gamekeeper can do.
Overall, over the last few years, (2005-2009, see the Reserves Review) lapwings and redshanks have increased in numbers on our nature reserves (and that isn't because we've added more land - it's true of the land we started with in 2005) so unless lots of waders flock into our reserves every year (which is just possible) we can't be doing too much wrong. But lapwing and redshank numbers fell a bit this year (2010) so there's nothing to be complacent about.
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
Fencing is fine, but the reality is that you are just pushing the problem onto another holding surely?
"I live in the countryside and hardly ever see a fox.", me too, because they are culled as needed to keep the population in balance.
"...they also exclude badgers which are more occasional nest predators". Very PC comment me thinks.
I would suggest that in the hot spot areas of England, badger predators are now a big problem for ground nesting birds, due to the balance not being maintained by culling. When the legislators interfere with one sector of the animal kingdom, the knock on effect hits other sectors !!