NEWS
EVENTS
"Man-eating fox" doesn't like taste of human flesh
Other | Thursday 4th October 2012 | Liam
A fox accused of being a man-eater claims he doesn’t even like the taste of human flesh
As an 83-year-old pensioner snoozed in his hammock one humid late afternoon in September, he awoke to what the Daily Telegraph quoted as a “searing paid [sic]” in his hand. When he looked down, he saw a “mangy-looking fox eating his hand”, as was reported in a letter by a Ms Tesler, the man’s daughter-in-law in Country Life magazine.
The fox, its jaws locked round the man’s crinkly flesh, tugging on it “like a bunny rabbit’s head”, looked up coyly for “longer than was comfortable” before swiftly spitting out the bloodied hand and dashing off into the undergrowth at the bottom of the garden.
When the man’s neighbour was also “troubled” by the fox, the neighbour contacted the council and pleaded with them to dispose of the animal, “humanely if you must but preferably horrifically using blunt instruments. And leave its head on a pike in the back garden when you’re done as a warning to others,” he reportedly said.
The man was left stumped when the council officer asked if the fox was still with him. The man sarcastically replied: “Oh yes, I invited him in for a cup of tea and a biscuit and we’re currently thumbing through the Independent and discussing the latest austerity measures”.
The council officer, believed to be “slightly autistic”, took this to mean that the fox was sitting in the man’s kitchen drinking tea and discussing politics and instructed the man to “throw a blanket over him, carry him into your car and drive him to your nearest RSPCA”. An RSPCA spokesman said that no arrangements are in place with councils to remove “irritating foxes”, and continued by saying: “If there is nothing wrong with the fox then there is no reason we’d be involved”.
Since the calls, Ms Tesler’s immediate family has also been “harassed” by foxes who feel they are being victimised in the press. The foxes have allegedly been turning up outside Ms Tesler’s house in the early hours, knocking over bins, spraying urine on their doorstep, and posted a brown bag of flaming poo through the letterbox.
A spokesman for the foxes said they are “sick and tired of being second-class citizens. We know how badgers feel. It's gone for too long. A young male fox can’t rummage through the bins behind a kebab shop without being accosted by vigilantes with brooms. Where is the government when we need them?" He continued: "Unemployment is at a record 120% amongst young adult males, cubs are being brought up in single-parent dens in a world where they have to steal human babies to eat”.
The fox accused of biting the pensioner’s hand has come out to say that he is "not" a man-eater and “doesn’t even like the taste of human flesh”. He claims he only tried the man’s hand because he’d heard that humans taste like chicken. “They don’t taste like chicken,” he said. He went on to say the family were over-reacting. “I gnawed the old timer’s hand a bit, yeah, but didn’t get as far as sinking my teeth in because it was so bitter and smelt of vinegar. So I don’t know what they’re on about. And it wasn’t blood on his hand. It was Reggae Reggae Jerk Sauce”.
The fox is considering a law suit for libel but is struggling to find a lawyer willing to represent him, which the fox said “exemplifies the prejudice foxes still face in 21st century society.” Ms Tesler has also accused the same fox of scaling her “10 feet garden wall” to bite the head off her daughter’s bunny rabbit, leaving the “decapitated body by the trampoline” which the fox then sprang over to make a dramatic exit. The rabbit later died from "severe trauma" to the head and neck. When questioned about this, the fox chuckled nostalgically to itself and said: “Oh yeah, I did do that”.
By Liam McKenna
