Didn't we use to have a scheme that paid a few pennies for each squirrel's tail (or mole or rabbit or Brummie or something or other)?

Thank God for Google and Wikepedia!

The Wombles
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article refers to the children's TV programme, not the radical anarchist WOMBLES group.

The Wombles are fictional characters created by British author Elisabeth Beresford, originally appearing in a series of children's novels from 1968.

Wombles are pointy-nosed furry creatures (though the characters in the original books resembled ordinary 'teddy bears') that live in burrows, where they help the environment by recycling rubbish in useful and ingenious ways. This "green" message was ahead of its time in the 1970s. Although Wombles live in every country in the world, the stories focus on the life of the Wimbledon Common burrow in London, England. Beresford reportedly invented the name "Womble" when one of her children referred to Wimbledon Common as "Wombledon Common".

Due to the Wombles' association with the area, sporting teams representing Wimbledon are frequently dubbed "the Wombles". For a brief period during the 1990s, Wimbledon F.C. used a Womble as a club mascot, and in 2006 the club's spiritual successor AFC Wimbledon launched its own Womble mascot. After a naming competition in which the final name was chosen by Elisabeth Beresford herself, the club announced that the new Womble would be known as "Haydon", after Haydons Road, the nearest station to the club's spiritual home ground, Plough Lane

My understanding is that suburban foxes are essentially the equivalent of racoons in the US. They make a mess of garbage if they can get into it - but if you have resident cats or dogs they move on to the next house - since they are obviously overmatched and don;t want a fight.

Don;t know about foxes in the country - but it would seem to make sense that they try to capture and eat things smaller than they are - and defenseless - rather than try to attack something larger - with some form of protection.

I mean - they are foxes after all - not wolves - or even coyotes. (And we're reintroducing the former in the adirondacks to try to restore the balance of the ecosystem - esp the massive overpopulation of deer.)

The Wombles are fictional characters created by British author Elisabeth Beresford,>>>>>>>>>


That's what they want you to think.....

For the confused amongst you

http://tinyurl.com/z5ln4

For the rest of us, altogether now...

"underground, overground, wandering free
the Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we
making good use of the things that we find,
things that the everyday FOX leaves behind"

That’s the pointy-nosed bastard that chased me home from the pub!

My observation is that the people of Britain make a huge deal out of foxes because that's the most evil animal they have in this most naturally benign country. It makes national headlines when someone finds a black widow in their lettuce (imported from a hot country).

Back to my OP - i still agree with the Eltham B&B lady that humans are the most evil and dangerous animal found in any country, including foxy U.K.

Yes, but most humans don't break into my neighbour's chicken run and randomly kill them just for fun.

Though there are animal rights nutters round here who probably would if they thought they'd get away with it.

<but most humans don't break into my neighbour's chicken run and randomly kill them just for fun>

So, if i read you right, foxes kill just for fun and not for food? In that case i would consider them vermin in any sense of the word.

They certainly only eat the juicy bits unless they're starving.

There was a stupid bit of the pro fox hunting lobby which said you could only control foxes by hunting. There were only 2 hunts in Scotland which kind of gave the lie to that.

I live in the country, see foxes periodically from my windows, consider that they are pest to people with poultry and should be shot to keep the population down. just because they're pretty doen't mean they're not a nuisance

They are not killing for fun, but in an enclosed space.they get confused.

Scenario: Fox jumps on a group of wild birds in the open.
If he catches one, he'll eat it or stash it for later and the rest of the flock will scarper.

Second scenario: Fox enters hen run and catches and kills a hen.
The others can't fly away but flap in panic.
Fox sees flapping hen and says, "Blow me, I could've sworn I'd killed that haen and kills it.
He then spots another flapping about and says, "Strewth, that hen is hard to kill!", etc. etc. etc.

Reading this, I feel like I've landed on another planet - where Monty Python was king.