Ross Frenett
: Woolwich Attack: Should We Expect a Violent Response?
Theo Randall
: Recipe for the Weekend: Minestrone Primavera
Zoe Armstrong
: Five Ways to Fake a Break and Avoid Parenting Burnout
Anne Speckhard
: Examining the Woolwich Murder of a British Soldier
Jody Thompson
: Polo: It's Not Just for the Posh, and It's a Chukka to Play
Wildlife TV presenter Chris Packham has said he "doesn't believe" people get attacked by foxes.
He has labelled the British as nature lovers "only when it suits us."
Packham's claims are extremely controversial, as though fox attacks are rare, there have been a number of well-publicised incidents.
Twin baby girls Lola and Isabella Koupparis were mauled by a fox in 2010, after the urban scavenger crept in through an open bedroom window at their south London home.
The girls were taken to hospital with serious injuries. Yet columnnist Rod Liddle has echoed Packham in the Spectator saying "My suspicion is that all of them are made up."
Packham has said that Brits are "hell-bent" on blaming foxes for everything.
Packham told the Radio Times that the urbanisation of the fox was "celebrated" in the late 1960s but "now we've seemingly tired of their antics and we're hell-bent on blaming them for all the crimes we can".
"But their only true crime is ... being too successful and that's another thing we Brits just can't stand," he told the magazine.
"Validated assaults of dogs and cats are non-existent, except under exceptional circumstances.
"And as for attacks on humans - I'll be necessarily diplomatic - I don't believe it," he said.
Following the fox attack, Ursula Keeling, who was living in the house with Castilli, told the Mail:
"We've got to get the message across that because they are predators they have no fear of anyone. Even if you see them on the road they just watch you. They are dangerous."
In 2004 a pensioner was savaged in Edinburgh by a prowling fox, which "pounced" as she went to feed her cat.
Margaret O’Shaughnessy, 88 was left with a three inch bite mark on her leg, following the fox attack.
Packham's claims that foxes don't attack animals also seems to contradict reports from both city and country dwellers. A 4ft long fox weighing 38lbs was shot by a farmer Alan Hepworth in Aberdeenshire farm in March. At the time, Alan Hepworth said he had to shoot the creatures to "stop them from attacking the lambs."
Jonathan Reynolds, senior research scientist at the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), told the BBC that one explanation for such a large fox was that they are "getting better fed" in urban areas, adding "a 38lbs fox would have been unthinkable a few years ago."
Packham, 50, who has previously waded into controversy for saying that pandas should be allowed to die out and for calling on parents to have fewer children, told the Radio Times: "A nation of nature lovers? Only when it suits us, when it's on TV or at arm's length.
"But as soon as a species survives in spite of us, has the effrontery to become common, then we want to control it - kill it."
Packham made the comments in connection with Channel 4 programme Foxes Live: Wild in The City. Channel 4 are carrying out the UK’s largest ever urban fox census to discover whether the public love or loathe foxes. The census can be carried out here – www.channel4.com/foxes
Loading comments… 
Huffington Post UK/PA | Posted: 24/04/2012 10:41 Updated: 24/04/2012 15:35