I have messaged the hospital which seems to think an unwell fox will break in and attack and kill. Pest Control should be the very LAST people to contact as thet do not care if it might be a vixen looking for food for cubs or what season it is: they are only interested in the money.
Culling any and all foxes because one looks ill?? This is the year 2017 and there are groups like the National Fox Welfare Society who should be called first. Foxes have lived on Southmead Hospital grounds, that I know of from when I lived in Southmead, since the early 1970s.
A "cull" is knee jerk panic. Read the headline. Good to see people have protested the move.
This is the 21st Century and some pest controllers are far more dangerous than any ill fox.
Foxes could crawl through maternity ward windows and endanger babies, says hospital considering cull
A diseased fox has been seen loitering around the maternity wards at Bristol Southmead Hospital
A hospital in Bristol is considering culling foxes outside a maternity unit because they believe the animals could climb in through the windows and pose a threat to newborns.
Bristol Southmead Hospital announced last week that pest controllers would ‘remove’ the animals ‘to ensure the safety of mothers and babies.’
NHS managers said they had become aware of one animal in particular which looked diseased, and had been seen in public areas.
However the proposal has sparked an outcry from locals and conservationists who have set up a petition which has already attracted hundreds of signatures.
View photos
Bristol Southmead Hospital
The hospital said it had temporarily halted its plan and was consulting with animal groups.
"Foxes have lived peacefully on the site for a number of years,” a spokesman said. “However, recently we have had more sightings of foxes particularly around our maternity unit.
"To clarify, we contacted pest control because we are particularly concerned about one of the foxes who looks like it may be unwell. The fox has become bolder in behaviour and is being sighted more regularly in public areas.
"So far we have contacted some alternative animal welfare organisations and we are pausing all existing activity while we consider their recommendations."
Details of the initial cull were first announced on the hospital’s Facebook page, in a post which warned that many of the maternity unit’s windows were left open during the summer, and said there was a ‘potential risk of foxes entering the building.’
But within hours, people had complained about the plans.
Nikki Hamilton posted: "I love the NHS and will always defend to the hilt but not happy that exterminators are killing the foxes", while Caroline Littlewood said she was "appalled" by the plans.
Debbie Swatton added: “Shame on you Southmead Hospital and Carillion. I’m sure if you had sought advice from a wildlife sanctuary, such as Secret World or Badger Care Wildlife, they would have helped in a more caring way.”
The hospital said it was now looking at other ways to deter the animals and said it had not killed any foxes.
We have received a number of messages regarding foxes located near our Maternity unit and around our hospital site. We recognise that many people are concerned for the welfare of the foxes; however as a hospital our priority has to be the safety of our patients.
We are grateful for all the recommendations of animal welfare organisations who might be able to help and we will make contact with them for their advice on the most appropriate action to take.
While under normal circumstances we would endeavour to directly respond to all messages, unfortunately in this case we are unable to respond to every message. We hope this post goes somewhere in addressing any concerns or questions you have.
- UPDATE -
We have had a number of people asking whether we have shot any foxes. We can confirm that we have not killed any foxes.
Foxes have lived peacefully on the site for a number of years. However, recently we have had more sightings of foxes particularly around our Maternity unit. To clarify, we contacted pest control because we are particularly concerned about one of the foxes who looks like it may be unwell. The fox has become bolder in behaviour and is being sighted more regularly in public areas.
So far we have contacted some alternative animal welfare organisations and we are pausing all existing activity while we consider their recommendations. We have also taken advice from them on how to deter foxes in future; one of their suggestions is that people on site do not feed the foxes. We will be sending out messaging to staff, patients and the public with this advice.
- FURTHER UPDATE -
You may have seen that a petition was recently created in response to comments about a fox near our Maternity unit.
Please see below our response to the petition:
We understand that this is a very emotive issue and people feel very strongly about the welfare of foxes on our hospital site.
To provide reassurances we can confirm that no foxes have been killed or harmed at Southmead Hospital and we have no intention to.
We are not sure where the petition’s reference to two foxes being caught has come from, but this is not the case. Nor do we have any intention of culling foxes.
Action was taken after concerns were raised by senior nursing staff at the hospital about a particular fox near the maternity department. We would not have been doing our job as a healthcare provider if we had not responded to these concerns, even if the potential risk is low.
We have paused all action in response to the comments we have received and we have contacted The Fox Project and were redirected to Fox-A-Gon. We are awaiting more advice before taking further action.
In the meantime, we are advising staff not to feed foxes around the site.
We understand that the foxes on our site provide pleasure to some patients and visitors and have lived in harmony with them for many years. We hope to find a way of continuing to do so, while also ensuring we do what is in the interest of all our patients.
We thank everyone for their suggestions of alternative organisations who may be able to help us resolve this matter.
I get asked "Why?" Why am I looking into these reports? It's all crazy stuff anyway.
I have talked to alleged "contactees" as well as abductees (though showing how silly it gets some prefer to be called "experiencers" or any number of other names for various reasons) and I have spoken to those who have had odd experiences that seem to conform to what are called part of the alien abduction event.
I have even examined one percipient, Mrs G., who was red on just one side of her body yet normal pale skinned on the other side, following strange night time events. I have spoken to and even accompanied one woman who had a life time of strange experiences on a night watch. Both of us sat in a deserted park play area ~nothing appeared. This woman had experiences from a teenager onward. She had been ridiculed and found me to be the only one willing to listen, ask serious questions and not dismiss her as a "nut" ~in the late 1970s/early 1980s that was still UK Ufology's response to these claims. This witness, Mrs C., was in the passenger seat of a car driven by her husband, in 1978, when a large headed type entity appeared in front of the windscreen of the car. So clear that Mrs C. could make a detailed drawing later. But at the time she looked at her husband who claimed to have seen nothing other than his wife look at him oddly. She was not looking dazed, sleepy or staring ~just looked normal. All time accounted for so no "abduction"
Aliens? Psychological? You only find out via investigation. For all i know these two ladies are still percipients in events. Though both felt they could talk freely to me, they were being called names and facing some hostile comments from "respected Ufologists" and one eventually turned to the Church while the other just broke off contact.
In 1958, a man driving near Bristol (UK) was involved in a vehicle interference case and there was missing time involved. He contacted BUFORA in the 1970s as things still bothered him. I received his appeal for help years later as "You are interested in these things, aren't you?" As it turned out the man had, by then, moved to Rhodesia/Zimbabwe now and stood by all he had written but having been ignored that was it. No longer interested.
I coined a term "UFO Time Lapse" ~though in some cases no object was sighted but all the details seemed very similar to those in cases where objects were sighted. I asked BUFORA to adopt this term in the late 1970s (1978 I believe) since there was, as I pointed out, a good few of these events being reported. No. Norman Oliver seemed the only Ufologist interested in the term being applied!
When, in the late 1970s, I took over as head of Research and Investigation for the British Flying Saucer Bureau (f. 1953) it also led to my eventually reviving and updating the old Flying Saucer News to The UFO News Bulletin. I found that Contactee George Adamski was still help up as a credible percipient in alien contacts. About as credible as Arthur Bryant in my opinion back then. But I discussed Alien entity cases and the look of horror on some faces!
There was a case that I later made the cover item ~I took time to draw and re~create the scene as described by the percipient. Handed the magazine in to be printed and a week later got my copy: the cover had been removed by BFSB Committee "order" and replaced with a photocopy of the BFSB symbol. I was not told about this and when it happened a second time I quit. No more publication because no one else had the skills to produce it. When I asked about old cases I knew the BFSB had "looked into" the files were suddenly "Somewhere. Not sure where" for about five years. The BFSB did not want its 'reputation' to be tainted by this silly stuff. The final straw came after a talk I gave on Close encounters of the Third Kind at a BFSB meeting was interrupted several times as it was pointed out that, "unlike Adamski these persons have furnished no proof" and "But we know from what Adamski told us~~" I quit the BFSB! Ufologists over and over again ad nauseum talk about non existent "Ministry" cover ups or "suppression of cases by government bodies" yet have done exactly the same since the very first days of flying saucer 'investigation'. Major (Retd) Donald E. Keyhoe's National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomenon (NICAP) ridiculed or explained away AE cases. The list goes on and even James and Coral lorensens Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) obfuscated some cases. In the UK I found only Norman Oliver to be seriously interested in the investigation of these reports. After Budd Hopkins and the whole missing time furore we have "Greys" everywhere but it took until the mid 1980s before the UK latched on and then it was hip and cool to follow this trend. The UK suddenly had Greys seeping out of the woodwork. Anything or case before 1987 became a "screen image" by the Greys. It was Greys. All Greys. Then Insectoids...and Reptileans..and hybrids and...blah blah blah. Back in the 1970s I had an idea, Lord (Brinsley) Clancarty and even Sir Victor Goddard thought it had merit. I knew people involved in all sorts of radio work and some had detected odd signals not identified at that time. I had even sat in cars at 0300 hrs as mobile radios were tuned in to scan certain frequencies. So why not get a network in the UK listening for unusual signals or even sending out "message" signals into the ether? The network could be built on as it went along but we would have an unofficial CETI (Communications with Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) project that could concentrate on certain known anomalies. Then I was told "no". It seems that certain people high up in astronomical circles thought it was "deplorable" that a "bunch of amateurs" do this type of thing. Back then, if "Sir" whoever objected the Old Boys Network swung into action. There was a funny side to this. Apparently, someone had complained that I was "Like bloody Quatermass!" (the UK TV sci fi horror series of the 1950s). On a train journey to get to RAF Brize Norton in the 1980s I was going through papers when a group of airmen got into my carriage. They noticed the UFO material but didn't say much. At the next station a Group Captain I had met before and he looked at me and then at the younger men: "Watch yourselves, Professor Quatermass is here!" he said loudly. The airmen had no idea. However on a few other occasions I was referred to in a joking fashion as "Old Quatermass". I have hefty files on AE/CE 3K accounts from around the world and they were scoured long ago for any non humanoid cases that seemed to have credibility. few did. Some were outright hoaxes or explained in other ways ~which original sources, such as Flying Saucer review, knew were hoaxes yet promoted over the years as genuine. Even the 1958 "Scottish Landing" turns out to be a hoax by FSR or one of its associates yet is still cited as genuine to this day. SETI and those "in the know", always said any aliens would not look like humans. Would look anything but human. But in the last decade or so many now say the humanoid form may be some kind of galactic standard form. Which is why I never gave up looking at any reports and found a few of great interest. However, one case that had high strangeness and involved an AE type not recorded before or since took place in 1973. And it was dealt with by the Allen Hynek created Centre for UFO Studies (CUFOS). Pay dirt ~this elite organisation was on the spot. Except, as I found out a few years back, the report was not investigated because no one could be bothered. Seriously. And when cases crop up or are thoroughly investigated do Ufologists join together to look for more information in a scientific way ~ie. do they look for back up information both pro and con a case? Only when you look at all possible explanations and exclude them do you have a case worthy of note. But, no, it's name calling, back~stabbing, even lying from one Ufologist to another and often a percipient is stuck in the middle of this. "This testimony does not conform with what Budd Hopkins or Dr Jacobs ascertained so its a fake!" Ufology as a whole is not scientific. And every year since 1998 (?) we have heard from the same old same old media faces that "Full disclosure will take place this year/next year!" Still waiting. Ufologists need to practice full disclosure of how they mess things up ~not all of them because there are credible investigators out there~ and base things on personal bias rather than based on facts. Since 1975 I have been looking at AE/CE3K reports and I will continue to do so, yes, even keeping an eye on current abduction work, because that is how you come up with a seemingly genuine report. One to build on. One that may prove the earth has had the occasional extra terrestrial visitor and that is what science needs. A case it can dig into. I have a mind. I want to find things out. The weirder or stranger the claim the better because that makes my mind work and, you never know, one day.....
There are four parts to this. I got 15 minutes into part 1 and said out loud "It's a con!"
I have seen this exact type of act regarding UFO contacts, 'psychics' but mainly in the field of weirdness. If you know anyone who has studied psychology ask them to watch all four parts. Johnson over bearing and vocalizing loudly at the right points, cuing in lady by the stage and even "This is what the skeptics will say" points at the right moment. When his "extras" came on at the end that should have convinced anyone.
But what was it P. T. Barnum said.....?
I really WANT to hear Adam Davies talking now about that night because I think those men were controlled, set up and duped. Interesting to hear Johnson give yet a third version of his part in that night's events.
A few years back, while doing my police advisory work, I asked a golf course owner about local wildlife. "Bloody rabbits and rats!" was the reply. I asked "Don't you have any foxes? Him: "Shot 'em!" The post title comes from a similar idiot (I'm retired now so I can voice an opinion!)
You take the natural predator out of the food chain you get problems.
It's not just the hunters with hounds getting away with murder!
More often than not when the word fox is mentioned a great many thinks of the horrors of fox hunting with hounds.
When foxes have been in our care for treatment and when due to be released back into their town or city territories people will often ask that we keep them in our care as cub hunting has started or the fox hunting season is under way. However the majority of the town and city foxes thankfully never get chased and ripped to shreds by the hounds and often the real killers of the town and city foxes are overlooked.
Pest Control companies whilst lining their pockets probably account for the death of not hundreds but thousands of foxes each year. Pest Control companies have no close season so they will be killing in certain months, pregnant vixens, lactating vixens, and cubs. This happens on a daily basis. In certain situations, food will be left on a lawn and as the foxes come to eat a pest controller will be aiming his gun sights on their heads, their only crime is to be in a garden where they are not wanted. In other situations, a cage trap is set and when a fox is caught, it will be shot in the head.
Why is this happening? Some people don't like the idea of having foxes visit their gardens so Pest control companies are called in. Some schools and golf courses will have foxes on the land that they don't want there. Supermarkets, hotels restaurants, and businesses will call in pest control to kill the resident foxes.
This daily slaughter solves no real problems as when a family of foxes in a territory is wiped out all this does is create a vacant territory for another fox family to fill. The only winner in this is the Pest Controllers as their pockets will be lined again.
Foxes are not invading our gardens, it is us, invading theirs and with the constant need of more housing, supermarkets etc, we are forcing more foxes to live in an urban area, so for those getting away with murder, business will be booming!
Now each of the five groups that I contacted in 2016 stated that they get "a hundred or couple hundred" new alien abduction cases each month. When I asked two why their reports online seemed to all be written by the same person both stated that, to "prevent an abductee being identified", the person in charge re~wrote the accounts. Now, let me point out that this simply has an accusation of fakery thrown at these groups. One had a re~written account to, obviously, not identify the alleged abductee...who appeared in a photo with the investigator in question. Really wanted anonymity then. These accounts are useless. They provide no real data. Why? If you look at any subject as an investigator then you have to read the actual words of the person involved. This is why police officers say "In your own words" or a judge in court will say to a person "It would help considerably if you told us in your own words". Re~writing a statement does not protect a witness/percipient ~a code of ethics should do that~ it merely gives the impression that everything is made up by one person: the person running the group and re~writing everything. The situation is made worse by the fact that every witness sketch varies despite stating "It was like the face on the cover of that Streiber book!" Yet, the sketch is nothing like the 'Grey' on the cover of Communion. I have mention this all before so let's not go over it again. I think that a great many reports are fabricated by certain 'investigators', because it brings them kudos as far as they see it. With the person actually making a report you can have various reasons: hoaxing, attention seeking, psychological, etc. etc. etc. I am not a "debunker" ~which many Ufologists use because you offer a rational explanation along with facts to reinforce that explanation. Not a case of "I say the case involves "this" so it's a fact!" No, the investigator should look at the hypothesis offered and if it proves correct then move on. If it does not prove correct then other avenues need to be looked at. The more explanations you look at and can dismiss the better the case becomes. There is a famous case from the United States in the early 1970s. I won't go into it in any detail but there was far more than a creatures encounter. Reading the investigator's account of the case I realised that some of the percipient behaviour at the time and afterwards strongly indicated a psychological condition. I pointed this out, very politely but have not heard from the investigator since sadly. Every American trend from UFOs, ghosts, demons, Bigfoot and much more that get wide TV coverage or feature on You Tube tends to hit the UK. I have big files on Alien Entity/CE 3K going back to 1900 (and a few before that). I notice how the entities involved in some of these are now depicted or described as "Greys" but never were before. This seems to be down to the Ufologist and the idea that anything originally reported was a "screen image". The "Greys", as veteran research Ann Druffell has pointed out, until the 1980s and the start of "abduction research" and wide use of hypnosis, there were no Greys as described. That is not to say that there were no similar looking, large headed entities but it is just that the Greys appear to be a modern myth. David M. Jacobs states that if you have seen a UFO, even in the distance as it shoots through the sky, you have been abducted. I'm guessing that if you have seen a landed craft and entities that also means you have been abducted? Utter rot. The first thing I always did, from when I started out in 1973, right up to now, is talk to witnesses. Find out how long the sighting they had lasted: "Well, the news was ending at 10:30pm...and the object had gone by the time the weather report ended..." so about five minutes. How did they know the time in other cases? Dashboard clock in a car that was used to time how long an object took to pass over the road ahead and move away over woodland. To state that every UFO sighting is evidence of alien abduction and no one can dispute it because only you know the truth borders on a psychological condition in itself. But back to these UFO groups and their claims for the UK. The 2016 UK population was 65.4 millions. So let's say 100 new to each group every month ~just three groups, no more.. That's 1,200 for one group in a year and for three groups 3,600 in a year. If you accept the upper number of 200 a month that is 7,200 in a year. And for 10 years 72,000 so if the six groups I was in contact with were telling the truth then we are dealing with some 7,200 per month and some 86,400 each year...or 864,000 over ten years and those are the percipients actually making reports and so a small percentage of all UK abductees. I do not believe that figure. "I was abducted by aliens. It was those grey ones with the lizard~men and mantis~like creatures!" Write that down, put it online and there you go. That is evidence of stupidity on the part of the Ufologist. Now, I have a rather love~hate thing with Carl Sagan, however, there is a quote of his that is very apt:
I am not a "UFO believer" because that is nonsense. Someone might say "going by what I've heard I believe UFOs are real" but the title "believer" has some negative connotations to it. I am not a debunker. I look at what is reported and search for evidence to disprove or prove that evidence to be genuine. I get invitations from "skeptics" groups who feel I am on the same level of thinking as them. I turn invitations down.
Skeptics who are skeptics because it makes them seem big or more knowing than someone else I cannot abide. Sat on fat arses pontificating or making claims that only those who have no idea of the subject in question will think is fact are a waste of space. "Sea monsters do not exist because~~~" Well, no "monsters" but sea creatures so far undiscovered by science (which one has to face really screwed up badly on this one)....and Mr Comfie chair has not scoured the waters of the world ~we still have no idea what might be below the waves but Mr Comfie Chair does? All the silly explanations come out.
"Bigfoot does not exist because any such creature could not remain hidden!" I knew a zoologist who said that for years until he visited Canada and said he never realized just how vast its forests were. "Anything really big could live there ~but not Bigfoot. That doesn't exist!" He later stated.
And I do not, and never ever would, state that I do not believe that alien life forms have visited the Earth over the last 200 years, or before. I have spent decades looking at the evidence for this. I have met people who have stood up to every ounce of scrutiny, trick questions and so on that I have used. I have no doubt they are not lying. They have never suffered mental illness, head injuries or anything else (and there are things I have looked at that most Ufologists do not even know of) that would make them believe they saw aliens.
What do I make of those cases? Worth noting but one off encounters where there is no evidence or where physical evidence existed but was trampled over by Ufologists? You have to think and that is all you can do. Then look for correlations. And you keep on looking until you find the correlations or the actual evidence to prove a case.
I am not a cryptozoologist, a Fortean, a Ufologist, demonologist, ghostologist (!) or follower of any other made up subject. Which includes "Skeptics." I am a naturalist and scientific investigator. I have theories.
I want facts and evidence and the UK appears to have fallen into a prolonged period of Idiotologists (there is a good title) who just believe anything. Some probably get their training watching Dr Who.
A genuine incident or event I am always interested in hearing about and no witness/percipient should ever feel that I doubt them. It may seem so but if you just need a "Yes. We know all about this. Happens thousands of times a year!" then there are groups for you. If you want someone to seriously look at what happened to you without judging...I am contactable.
