An animal lover who works in Mells has taken to social media to express her delight that she and her colleagues have been able to feed a visiting fox and apparently improve the animal's health.

However her post, showing the female fox feeding at the CPM group factory, led a local resident to say that if this was the same animal who had killed her chickens, the animal should be destroyed.

The post was later removed.

The fox feeder, who is clearly devoted to her young visitor, was horrified and approached Nub News to find out if the threat could be carried out.

She also asked us to contact the RSPCA because she understood that during lockdown the charity had relocated foxes out of the city.

The RSPCA were keen to stress that this is an urban myth. But the charity added that foxes are not a protected animal and therefore can be destroyed in a human way - although it is not supported by them.

A spokesperson for the RSPCA said: "While some people may consider foxes a problem, many like seeing them in their gardens and consider them a vital part of British landscape. A lot of people take great pleasure in seeing foxes wandering around, and enjoy the idea of wildlife thriving in a seemingly hostile urban environment.

"Those worried about their presence or who consider them a nuisance sometimes suggest that relocating or destroying foxes that are present in one part of town is the answer. However, this will simply encourage other foxes to move in from other areas and take their place.

"The most humane and long-term solution to discourage foxes is to remove or prevent access to the things that are attracting them to the area, like food and shelter.

"Barriers, such as fencing or prickly plants, and chemical repellents that are approved for use with foxes, may discourage them from coming into a garden. Repellents are available from garden centres or hardware stores, but care must be taken to follow the instructions closely as each product is prepared and approved for use against certain animals in a particular way.

"Foxes are wary of people and normally run away to avoid us. It's important that people do not try to hand-feed foxes or make them tame as this may encourage foxes to approach other people."

Relocating foxes:

For animal welfare reasons, the RSPCA does not relocate urban foxes to the countryside. This has been a longstanding position but sometimes inaccurate media stories and rumours give misleading impressions to the contrary.

All foxes are adapted to living in their particular habitats, so urban foxes will be adept at exploiting an urban environment. Foxes are territorial so they know the resources in their territory that they can exploit. By removing them and putting them down in a new area, they would have to compete with resident rural foxes for food and shelter. This may lead to direct aggression, and possibly death through starvation etc. Also, urban foxes tend to be more group living than their rural cousins and so the removal of an urban fox may disrupt the dynamics of any group again causing problems. The animals might also have sub-clinical infection e.g. be infected with mange mites and therefore translocation might exacerbate a disease problem. So for the sake of the welfare of the foxes themselves, the RSPCA does not catch and release urban foxes in rural areas. We do rehabilitate sick and injured adult foxes that are all returned to where they are found, and cubs, where, if we can't return them to where they are found, we release in carefully identified release sites using a proper process agreed with the landowner.

Can you kill a fox?

Foxes do not have general protection, so it is legal to kill a fox using certain methods providing no unnecessary suffering is caused, however this is not something the RSPCA would encourage.

What laws are foxes protected by:

Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act (1981) it is illegal to kill a fox with a bow or crossbow, self locking snare or use a live animal as bait or decoy to try and catch a fox

The fox is also protected under the Wild Mammals Protection Act (1996) so that it is illegal to intentionally cause suffering to a fox using one of the methods listed in the Act.

Under the Protection of Animals Act (1911) it is illegal to put out poisoned baits with the specific intention of killing foxes.

Any fox caught in a trap would become a protected animal under the Animal Welfare Act and this must be considered when using any type of trap, including a snare.

The Hunting Act (2004) also bans the hunting of foxes with dogs, although there are some exemptions within this Act.