Pest Control Diary: New Tactics

From a pest control point of view keeping the fox population under control is an all-year affair. You can call it sport if you like, but first and foremost it’s pest control. So to anybody that won’t raise a gun to a fox until it’s an adult think again. Foxes have been trapped, snared, baited, with terriers driven to waiting guns by hounds, shot even poisoned and theY’RE still thriving. The biggest blow to them was lung worm and even that didn’t wipe them out! This year I’ve had more calls to deal with foxes than ever before, mostly ¾-grown cubs striking out on their own but still in the general area of where they were born. Relatively easy you might think but when they are striking during day light hours not just on one farm but on four or five and I have other work on it’s not good.

TARGETS OF OPPORTUNITY

I don’t actively go out looking for cubs, but take them when I come across them, if I don’t then come lambing time I will be run ragged chasing foxes that’s wised up after having a close encounter with someone with lamp and rifle. The four seasons can also (to a point) limit the amount of success you have, not only are cubs born when food is abundant but the ground cover is at its highest making it harder to find them. Even at an early age something out of the ordinary will send them darting for cover and too much disturbance will cause them to move.

Foxes are not nocturnal but simply catch on that it’s safer at night than by day, and they learn that by the time all the ground cover has died back than before you know it’s lambing time again, so it goes on. I remember when I was a young lad I was ratting on a small holding when I shot a young rat that came out to feed from a hopper I must of sounded disappointed when I said it’s only a little one, to which a reply came yes but a little rat grows into a big un! That comment stayed embedded in my memory ever since; so get them when you can or suffer later! Someone that knows the ways of the fox can have a marked affect on their population but will never wipe them out. Yes I do feel some kind of sadness for every fox I shoot or trap but the damage caused to the land owner far outweighs any pity for the culprit!

THE ETERNAL STRUGGLE

Which brings me to a particular job I have in hand it’s on a farm I’ve been shooting on since I was a lad, and is responsible for my foxing career. The farmer’s sons have now grown up and have sons and daughters of their own apart from that nothing much has changed. The battle against the fox still goes on except for a steep banking that has been planted up and fenced off and that’s where the problem starts.

Not only are the trees doing well but the grass and brambles are really going wild, great for the roe but equally great for the fox; the only thing is I can’t see them and the wooded overgrown banking goes half way round the farm. So all the fox has to do is make a quick dart from the thick cover grab a ‘take away’ chicken or a goat kid and dart back to again. So you can appreciate my predicament; while I am watching one area the fox would strike in another the only thing in my favour was I knew the time it was striking at between 15.00 & 17.00.

GOT AN IDEA

So I tried something I have never tried before; clear some small patches of vegetation creating areas for the cubs to bask in the sun that I could see from the fence line. I got that idea when I spotted a cub doing just that a few weeks prior to all the trouble starting and managed to sneak up on it with my 22 rimmy so thought it was worth a try.

I also had an area to try my idea, my guess was the fox or foxes were using a drain near the top of the hill so anywhere below that would be a good place to catch them basking in the sun sleeping off their takeaway. When you’re under pressure to deliver, anything is worth a try and the possible rewards are good for very little effort too. However, don’t go over board by throwing bait all over the place or they could smell a rat though cubs are not as switched on as adults! But leave nothing to chance as foxes like most animals are curious and will investigate things going on around them that might not be the same day but they will check, so there’s no point in baiting up the area the first two afternoons. I took up position, nothing, no sightings no missing chickens, but I knew the cubs couldn’t resist the easy pickings. I just had to be patient and hope afternoon visits’ to the yard would start again to change my work load again would be out of the question. On my third afternoon I took my 22 rimmy along for the rabbits that were being a nuisance in what was a well planted garden shouldn’t be a problem.

GAME ON

I soon switched from the garden to the field bordering the wooded hillside, the same one I suspected the cubs were laying up on. I took a shot at a rabbit 20 feet from the fence in the long grass piercing it’s ears when a fox suddenly jumped the fence and made off, chances are it was laying in wait watching the same rabbit! I could have cried but that’s what you get when you bow to the demands or wishes of the land owner. But it’s hard, as both rabbit and fox are causing just as much damage as each other and both need addressing.

On my fourth visit I left the 22 at home and concentrated solely on foxes, picking my place of ambush I waited, still kicking myself - if only I hadn’t took that shot at the rabbit I would of probably been at home now fox accounted for.

Suddenly something in the distance half way up the wooded hillside caught my eye; a fox laid out sunning it’s self though not in one of the areas I had cleared. I moved onto the fence and waited for a clear shot watching it through the scope I could see one ear then the other twitch a sign the midges were bothering it. Not daring to lift my eye from the scope hoping it would move in some way to give me a clear shot then without warning it suddenly sat up to shake it’s self to rid it’s self of the biting midges. That’s all I needed; I touched the trigger and five days of waiting was all over within seconds, my prize - a well grown cub - but then again it should be, it had been dining well!