Earlier this month Channel 4 launched Foxes Live: Wild in the City, an interactive natural history event which put the power into the hands of the viewers. Anyone who owned a smart phone was a potential wildlife photographer and was able to contribute to new natural history research by taking part in the largest ever urban fox survey.
Before the survey, no-one really knew how many urban foxes lived in the UK and what the general public really thought of them. With the last study on urban foxes carried out over 30 years ago, Channel 4 is now able to share brand new wildlife research and information.
Thousands of people took part in the survey sharing their thoughts and opinions on foxes and whether they believed urban foxes lived up to their cunning reputation.
Over 11,500 people completed the survey with a massive 89% of people living in urban areas saying they liked foxes and were in favour of them living in their cities. People who weren’t so keen on foxes were those who encounter them more frequently.
Females liked foxes more than males and those aged 18 and younger preferred them to people aged 18 and above (18-50 age group). Residents in Northern Ireland were the biggest fox lovers (92% liked foxes) and foxes were least liked in London (19% disliked foxes).
On the web site there were 17,532 fox sightings logged in total in the UK. Southern England had the highest frequency of sightings. Over 75% of people in London claimed to see a fox once a week or more.
When it comes to how foxes interact with other animals, 8% of people think that foxes might regularly attack pets but only 5% of people actually reported fox attacks on pets. And foxes may be the surprise victims: people reported they were three times more likely to see foxes being chased, attacked and even killed by pets than the other way round.
Eight out of 10 people agreed that seeing foxes enriched their lives and 36% of people living in urban areas admitting to feeding foxes in their gardens. Less than 1 out of 10 people said foxes should be removed from cities.
Foxes Live: Wild in The City was backed by The RSPCA and featured experts including Dawn Scott, Head of Biology and Biomedical Sciences Division at The University of Brighton. Dawn, who also analysed the online survey results, said ‘This information will provide us with a better understanding of the national distribution of urban foxes and enable us to produce new population estimates. It has also helped us to understand people’s perceptions of both the benefits and issues of living with urban foxes.’