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.
Yes, why don't you control stoats on your reserves Mark?
There is a wealth of scientific evidence from this country and abroad identifying the stoat as one the most important nest predator species. The RSPB's own information leaflet about lapwing acknowledges as much.
FORGET ELECTRIC FENCES – MANAGE THE PREDATORS
A current article (again) in Shooting Times by Lindsay Waddell – Gamekeeper - discusses predator control
• Phillip Merricks MBE manages Elmley National Nature Reserve in Kent
• Elmley NNR has 363 pairs of lapwings producing 349 chicks @ 1.33 chicks per pair
• Swale – 88 pairs – 23 chicks @ 0.28 chicks per pair
• Elmley Marshes RSPB - 66 pairs – SEVEN chicks @ 0.3 chicks per pair
• Wall End Marshes FIVE pairs – NO chicks
• At least 0.7 chicks per pair are needed to keep the population afloat – only Merricks’ site is close – all the others are acting as “sinks”
• Prof Ian Newton – ex RSPB Chairman – “it follows that much of the habitat in Britain must be acting as a sink in which reproduction is insufficient to offset the adult mortality”
• PMs friend visited Titchwell Reserve in Norfolk and saw many many stoats – a bird breeding reserve – appalling !!!
LW suggests the RSPB stops moaning at farmers and gets on with producing more chicks.
There is a very strong tradition in the countryside that if an animal gets in the way of human objectives the first reaction is to reach for the shotgun or rifle. With the imbalance human activity has created in predator/prey relations culling some species is inevitable - probably the most significant being (herbivorous) deer which can devastate the ecology of woodlands and where fencing in or out doesn't address the problem of overall population. However, shouldn't we increasingly try and look back from the other end of the telescope and look at all the alternative options before applying lethal control ? Not least because killing animals is both expensive and frequently ineffectual and, as Gert Corfield's comment shows simplistically hitting the most obvious target can have peverse effects - as is the case with Badger culling & TB where, regardless of whether you agree with culling or not the hard science shows that culling may increase TB infection.
Any one who knows any thing about foxes knows how to call them in. Babies crying when their parents sit and watch TV sound like a distressed mammal which they are and worthy of investigation. The same happens when Polecats are kept as pets and hear babies crying. From a friendly animal one minute to a natural killer the next. What a shame tunnel traps have not been banned as they kill protected species like Polecat and Red Squirrel. New versions even kill owls or any thing that ventures inside!!
A pragmatic approach is clearly best and I expect you will get the balance right. At Rainham there is, presumably, an inexhaustable supply of urban foxes so fencing seems the only answer. At some other reserves fox control seems a better bet, although the point about fencing out badgers is interesting. It's good that you'll be fencing both out on Wallasea Island - no need for Eagle Owls there!
I must say that fencing can spoil the natural 'wilderness' experience - seeing fencing round Stone Curlew plots does nothing for my enjoyment of a reserve.
A point often made is that it is an odd outcome if the RSPB buys land that was formerly managed for shooting, stops the legal control of predators and as a result the populations of key bird species fall. I am sure that quite a proportion of the membership would be happy with more robust predator management (I would!) but obviously many wouldn't, nor would some wardens.
Incidentally, I think you'll find that in the fox hot spots of north London, families with small children are not very keen on the foxes that come into their gardens, delightful though they look as they trot down the road in Hampstead.