15st man 'mugged by fox'

A fully-grown man has told how he was mugged by a fox, which cornered him and forced him into handing over his dinner.

Seb Baker, 29, weighs 15 stone but was attacked by the common red fox as he walked home from the supermarket.

The civil servant has revealed the wily fox, which had been sitting on a kerb at the side of the road, followed him into an alleyway.

There, he told the Sun newspaper, the aggressive animal leapt at him, circling him like prey and trying to snatch his shopping bag.

Despite making attempts to escape, the fox persisted and carried out a sustained attack on the food he had just bought from Tesco.

Eventually, Mr Baker claims, he resorted to offering the animal his loaf of garlic bread and the fox scampered off.

Mr Baker, from Orpington, Kent, told the Sun: “I had expected it to run away. I thought a fox would be scared of a 15-stone man.

“But the fox started circling me and then jumped up, trying to grab my shopping bag.

"Eventually I opened the bag and gave it a garlic loaf. He grabbed it and ran off.”

Wildlife expert John Bryant said foxes were getting bolder but were not generally interested in humans, and confirmed attacks like this are rare.

He advised: “If a fox is jumping at your shopping bag you need to shout at it and chase it off, not just give it the food.

“The best thing to use is a water pistol.”

In October 2011, five-year-old Marius Rook was mauled by a fox in his own bedroom in Hackney, London. Police used a noose to remove the animal from his home, after it it tried to bite his head.

In 2010, mother Pauline Koupparis told how a fox found its way into the upstairs bedroom of her nine-month-old twins, in her east London home.

The twins were left with severe injuries following the vicious attack.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9130473/15st-man-mugged-by-fox.html

Urban fox hunt video was hoax aimed at the media, say film-makers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/06/urban-fox-hunt-chris-atkins

Urban fox hunt video was hoax aimed at the media, say film-makers
Chris Atkins and Johnny Howorth, the team behind Starsuckers, say film was
satirical swipe at press coverage of fox attacks
• Paul Lewis
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 August 2010 17.35 BST

It was the internet video that sparked a media outcry: grainy footage that seemed to show four masked men drugging a fox and later beating it to death with cricket bats in a London park that was posted on YouTube and Facebook earlier this week.

But the Guardian can reveal that the new sport of "urban foxhunting" was an elaborate hoax. The film-makers, Chris Atkins and Johnny Howorth, said no real foxes were harmed in the film, which was intended as a satirical swipe at "media hysteria" over the danger of urban foxes.

Animal rights campaigners had expressed fury over the "bloodthirsty" huntsmen, eliciting the support of MPs on Twitter and prompting an inquiry by the Metropolitan police's wildlife crime unit.

YouTube and Facebook removed the footage and the controversy was covered in news outlets including the Guardian, the Times, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mail. The BBC was also duped, sending a reporter to Victoria Park, Hackney – the supposed scene of the crime. Amid a growing furore, the animal welfare group League Against Cruel Sports launched a campaign against urban foxhunting, while the RSPCA said it was investigating.

In today's London Evening Standard, columnist Sebastian Shakespeare went so far as to celebrate urban foxhunting as the first and best example of David Cameron's "big society" in action. In fact, the dead animal in the footage was played by a stuffed fox, the film-makers told the Guardian, while the live fox was played by a pet dog, Monty, with a bushy tail taped to its hindquarters.

The pair said they made their film "deliberately Pythonesque" in a bid to lampoon the media hysteria over urban foxes, and were surprised when the video was so widely assumed to be authentic.

Toddler taken to hospital after fox attack

A toddler was taken to hospital in Brighton after reports that he had been injured by a fox, police confirmed today.

The three-year-old boy was either bitten or scratched on the arm as he played outside at a party at Dorothy Stringer pre-school playgroup in Brighton, East Sussex, on Saturday afternoon.

It is believed the child, who has not been named, saw and stroked the tail of an animal which was sticking out from under a temporary building when it turned on him. An RSPCA inspector who attended the scene was unable to find the animal, but was told there had been a fox den in the playground for more than year.

Relatives took the boy to the Royal Sussex county hospital in Brighton where he was treated and released, Sussex police said.

An RSPCA spokeswoman said: "As far as we are aware it was a fox. People there told us they were aware of a fox who had made his den there and had been living there for a year of so."

She added: "Attacks like this are extremely rare. Foxes will usually shy away from interaction with people. We offer our sincere condolences to the family concerned and we hope for a speedy recovery for the child."

She explained that had a fox been found it would not have been put down but taken away and rereleased elsewhere. She had no information on the extent of the injuries.

A police spokeswoman said: "Police were called by South East Coast Ambulance Service at 12.30pm on Saturday 19 June after a report of a boy being bitten by a fox."

She added: "The boy was taken to the Royal Sussex county hospital by family, where he was treated and released."

A spokeswoman for South East Coast Ambulance Service said: "We were called to the scene but we then were stood down. This would imply that the injuries were not that bad."

The incident comes a fortnight after nine-month-old twins Isabella and Lola Koupparis were attacked after a fox entered their upstairs bedroom in Hackney, east London.

It is thought to have got in through a door on the ground floor of the three-storey house, which was left open because of the hot weather, while the children's parents watched Britain's Got Talent on television.

Both girls have since been discharged from hospital. The twins' four-year-old brother, Max, who was also sleeping upstairs, was not hurt in the attack.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/21/toddler-brighton-fox-attack

(submitted by Rob Chambers)