When is it a time to kill?

It might sound like a Basil Brush joke: when’s the best time to shoot a fox? When it’s 70 yards away and standing still is the obvious answer. But we can’t be out foxing all day long and all year round, so we have to pick the times when we can do the most good. It’s all about ‘return on investment’ — ROI — as modern marketing jargon would have it but in this case we’re talking about investing time and effort rather than hard cash.

So, what is the ‘return’ we’re looking for? A dead fox is the glib answer, but that’s rarely the ultimate goal. Why do we want it dead? Usually to stop it doing damage, or any more than it has already, to something we value — perhaps livestock, gamebirds, or vulnerable wildlife. That’s the key to