The observation that foxes can do tremendous damage to domestic livestock is one of the pivotal arguments for the continuation of hunting by the pro-hunting lobby. Unfortunately, there is no denying that foxes do kill livestock and sometimes do so to what appears to the casual human observer as “excess”. The counter-argument to “
well foxes kill all the chickens in the coop but only take a couple” is normally something along the lines of “that’s because the fox was disturbed during the caching process. If you’d have slept through the ordeal, you would have come out to find your coup devoid of most of the hens”. Unfortunately, there are no studies to support or refute this idea. The basis for this argument is that foxes can only carry a single bird at any one time (making the process of caching slow) and the livestock owner usually comes to investigate the disturbance before the fox has had time to remove and store more than one or two birds. Unfortunately, this is not necessarily accurate – there are many examples where foxes have killed two or three ducks, decapitating the birds, and have left the carcasses otherwise untouched. It is instances such as these that have perpetuated the belief that “foxes kill for sport”, or that they kill because they “enjoy” killing. Indeed, while following a fox hunting debate on an Internet discussion list recently, I read a post by a gentleman who considered that foxes only attacked our pets because they’re too small to attack us! (Photo: Very young foxes are well known to cache food, suggestions some genetic predisposition to do so.)
First let us deal with the idea that foxes get some pleasure out of killing, or kill for sport. For a predator, killing is a pivotal part of their existence; it's not an exercise-based leisure activity. Quite simply, to the exclusion of scavenging (which is highly unpredictable), if they don't kill something else they starve to death. At the same time, it seems reasonable to assume that an animal wouldn't perform a particular action (especially one as dangerous as chasing, capturing and killing another animal) if it disliked doing so. Consequently, in order to ensure that an action so crucial to their survival continues, predators have probably evolved to gain some enjoyment from hunting. Think about reproduction - in order to ensure they're passed to successive generation, our genes programme us to be rewarded (with the 'hormone of love', oxytocin) for having sex. If sex wasn't fun, nobody would engage in it and the species would die out (test tubes and geneticists notwithstanding!).
So, do foxes enjoy killing? Yes, they probably do - they have evolved to kill to feed themselves and their families and a conscience or dislike of doing so would hamper their surival. However, does enjoying the hunt make them "wicked"? Quite simply, no. So far as anyone has been able to tell, predators are indifferent, even apathetic, to the lives or “feelings” of their prey, in the same way that their prey is indifferent to the lives and feelings of their predators! Predators just do what they do. The adjectives “malicious” and “evil” are often used when referring to the predatory behaviour of foxes (and indeed many predators). I think that Aidan Martin sums up this debate quite nicely on his
ReefQuest site. Aidan writes:
“
Sharks lack a moral code, which is a necessary prerequisite for choosing to behave in a manner that could be called ‘evil’. Sharks simply do what they do without ill will or premeditation and thus cannot be labelled ‘malicious’.”
Although the above statement refers to sharks, it does well for foxes (or any other predator). In fact, the only animal to which it does not apply is a human! Humans have a moral code -- that is, a set of often-complex statements of right and wrong -- and, under most circumstances, an ethical code - predators do not. With this in mind, it seems rather unhelpful to judge predators by our own cultural values.
A fox once stuck its head through the catflap in the back door, it frightened the life out of me!
