Ricky Gervais - David Attenborough TV - Horizon TV - Daily Mirror - William Shakespeare - Napoleon Bonaparte - William Blake - Benjamin Franklin - Thomas Fuller - Oscar Wilde - Otis Ferry - Prince William - Janet George - John Pilger - William Cowper - Richard Dawkins - The Met TV - Natural World TV -
The only way fox hunting would count as vermin control is if the post twats fell of their horses and broken their necks. Ricky Gervais
Foxes bury their surplus food. David Attenborough, The Life of Mammals VI: Opportunists, BBC 2003
Foxes prey on newborn seals. David Attenborough, The Life of Mammals VII: Return to the Water
At every generation the selection process was repeated with only the tamest foxes being allowed to breed. Within just three generations the aggressive behaviour began to disappear. Half a century on the fiftieth generation of foxes are tamer than ever. It’s an accelerated model of how dogs might have been domesticated from wolves ... But it’s not just the fox’s behaviour that’s changed. Just a few generations into the experiment scientists began to notice a curious phenomenon: the normal pattern and silver colour of the coats changed dramatically. Horizon: The Secret Life of a Dog, BBC 2010
The fearless fox that scaled Britain’s tallest building is not alone in his daredevil antics. Daily Mirror article February 2011
The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb. William Shakespeare, The First Part of the Contention 2 Henry VI III i 55, Suffolk
I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other. Napoleon Bonaparte
The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion. William Blake
Many foxes grow gray but few grow good. Benjamin Franklin
Old foxes want no tutors. Thomas Fuller
The English country gentleman galloping after a fox – the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable. Oscar Wilde, A Woman of No Importance
Feelings are running high. People are starting to realise a ban might happen and people might get assassinated. Otis Ferry, joint master of the Shropshire Hunt, The Observer 7th November 2004
Fucking piss off! Prince William, Duke of Beaufort Hunt, to photographer before riding at him, January 2002
If Tony Blair wants war, he can have war. Iraq obviously wasn’t enough for him. Janet George, Countryside Action Network, BBC News 18th November 2004
The Blair government – it could conduct an unprovoked illegal invasion and destruction of another country as it did in Iraq but it would throw these sops, these distractions, such as a ban on fox hunting which got a great deal of publicity ...
Certainly I don’t want foxes killed. I don’t. I don’t like any animals being killed. I don’t want anyone being killed. But these and other issues are distractions. John Pilger, In Conversation
Let’s be perfectly clear, shall we. The fox is not a little orange puppy dog with doe eyes and a waggly tail. It’s a disease-ridden wolf with the morals of a psychopath and the teeth of a great white shark. Jeremy Clarkson, The World According to Clarkson
Detested sport,
That owes its pleasure to another’s pain. William Cowper, 1731-1800, The Task, 1785
Wild foxes are tricky to handle, and Belyaev set out deliberately to breed for tameness ... After a mere six generations of this selective breeding for tameness, the foxes had changed so much that the experimenters felt obliged to name a new category ... Such results are perhaps not too surprising, except for the astonishing magnitude and speed of the effect. Thirty-five generations would pass unnoticed on the geological timescale ... The tame foxes not only behaved like domestic dogs, they looked like them. They lost their foxy pelage and became piebald black and white, like Welsh collies. Their foxy prick ears were replaced by doggy floppy ears ... These dog-like features were side-effects. Belyaev and his team did not not deliberately breed for them, only for tameness. Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth pp75-76
Hackney rozzer: I once saw a fox run across the road with a whole KFC bucket in its mouth. The Met: Policing London s2e3, BBC 2015
The Arctic fox: Iceland’s first land mammal in its many colour variations … Its biggest challenge on Iceland is finding food. Natural World s35e4: Iceland: Land of Ice & Fire, BBC 2015