Why foxing is never just a numbers game

Many years ago, I met a man from south-west Wales who claimed to have shot 150 foxes on his 200 acres in a year. By any stretch, this amounted to an impressive total, but what did it mean in terms of predation control? The truth is, we will never know, because we have no idea about how many were still out there or what impact they were having.

Here is a crucial point to understand: whatever the predator, how many you nail is not the measure of success. The key question is: how much predation are you stopping?

Further discussion with my Welsh friend told me that he was operating in the watershed of two valleys, with loads of urban foxes coming in from each