More than 12,000 people have signed a petition to save London’s foxes from being lost forever.
Residents who see foxes as ‘vermin’ will be spending hundreds of pounds each to have the city-dwelling animals killed, because they can sometimes dumpster dive in people’s outdoor bins.
There are around 10,000 urban foxes living in the capital – around a third of Britain’s total urban fox population.
‘There will be bin liners overflowing and bursting open with leftovers, which is heaven for foxes,’ pest controller Tom Keightley told the Evening Standard.
‘They also prefer feathers over fur, so chicken and turkeys will go down nicely.’
Keightley added that gets paid handsomely to kill foxes in the city – he charges between £350 and £450 for a culling session, with an additional £50 to £75 per fox killed.
Patrick Short, who set up the petition on Tuesday evening, has now pleaded with Sadiq Khan to take urgent action to protect the city’s foxes.
‘The reason behind this cull is due to residents’ complaints of foxes rummaging through their bins, keeping them up at night and destroying their gardens,’ he writes.
‘However… killing the foxes seems unnecessarily cruel and useless when, according to the Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s website, “The territory of a culled fox will be quickly reoccupied by another fox”.
‘To continue to allow the culling of London foxes is not a long term, humane or cost-effective solution to the problem whatsoever.’
The RSPCA also urges people not to kill the animals, but rather to use non-lethal deterrents.
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