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Ebook273 pages4 hours
Foxes Unearthed: A Story of Love and Loathing in Modern Britain
By Lucy Jones
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this ebook
As one of the largest predators left in Britain, the fox is captivating: a comfortably familiar figure in our country landscapes; an intriguing flash of bright-eyed wildness in our towns.
Yet no other animal attracts such controversy, has provoked more column inches or been so ambiguously woven into our culture over centuries, perceived variously as a beautiful animal, a cunning rogue, a vicious pest and a worthy foe. As well as being the most ubiquitous of wild animals, it is also the least understood.
In Foxes Unearthed Lucy Jones investigates the truth about foxes in a media landscape that often carries complex agendas. Delving into fact, fiction, folklore and her own family history, Lucy travels the length of Britain to find out first-hand why these animals incite such passionate emotions, revealing our rich and complex relationship with one of our most loved – and most vilified – wild animals. This compelling narrative adds much-needed depth to the debate on foxes, asking what our attitudes towards the red fox say about us – and, ultimately, about our relationship with the natural world.
Yet no other animal attracts such controversy, has provoked more column inches or been so ambiguously woven into our culture over centuries, perceived variously as a beautiful animal, a cunning rogue, a vicious pest and a worthy foe. As well as being the most ubiquitous of wild animals, it is also the least understood.
In Foxes Unearthed Lucy Jones investigates the truth about foxes in a media landscape that often carries complex agendas. Delving into fact, fiction, folklore and her own family history, Lucy travels the length of Britain to find out first-hand why these animals incite such passionate emotions, revealing our rich and complex relationship with one of our most loved – and most vilified – wild animals. This compelling narrative adds much-needed depth to the debate on foxes, asking what our attitudes towards the red fox say about us – and, ultimately, about our relationship with the natural world.
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Author
Lucy Jones
Lucy Jones is the author of Losing Eden and Foxes Unearthed. Especially interested in the psychological relationship beween humans and the rest of nature, she spends as much time as possible outside with her children.
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Reviews for Foxes Unearthed
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
3 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5More a look into humans than the lives of foxes themselves. As such it features a lot of historical anecdote and a lot of speculation - mostly noted as such in the text to be fair, and there is a pretty good list of references and further reading in the back. As with most pop-sci for ease of reading these aren't footnoted in the text. broadly divided into themes the books starts with perhaps the dullest section - the rise and fall of Fox in popular culture, whether it's as the cunning hero Reynard The Fox, through more tricky Dahl-esque tales, and the more modern villain. A bit of history, and lifestyle analysis then follows, mostly refuting or excusing the various myths that surround foxes, followed by a close examination of the elephant in the room - the Hunting debate.The author manages to attend both a Meet and join with the sabs who disrupt them, which does give a slightly balanced view, and she allows the reader to make up their own mind - although it's fairly clear from early on which side she falls. Indeed it would highly unlikely for someone to write a book about a creature they genuinely believed to be vermin, and so most of the book is firmly on the side of the foxes, with the author never quite believing that some people genuinely can't enjoy such magnificent creatures.I would have liked more personal connection to a few specific foxes - it is possible for urban foxes to become quite tame around humans, and a bit more on their biology and lifestyles, maybe more compare and contrast between the rural and urban animals. But as my given name is Reynard, I was always going to be a sucker for anything even slightly competently written around my totem creature, and this is an interesting and informative account of mankind's very mixed relationship with what is now the UK's largest predator.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I am not sure just how many foxes there are where I am living, but I see them darting across the roads at night, caught by the headlights of the car. There was even one brazen fox walking up the middle of the road at midnight once. These fleeting glimpses of our largest predator left in the UK are for me quite special, but for others, this animal is considered a nasty pest and is something to be vilified.
In this interesting account of our tempestuous relationship with the fox. Consider and cunning and crafty animal by most, Lucy Jones has delved into the folklore, fiction and her own family history and met with those that love and hate these intelligent creatures. This bang up to date account of foxes goes some way to demonstrating our complex relationship with the natural world too. To get a better understanding of the different perspectives, she joins a hunt and a later with the saboteurs of a following a hunt to get a better perspective as to how people feel about this animal and explores the issues that polarised people on the heated public debate on this subject.
Jones has written this book about vulpes vulpes with a considered and measured approach. You know whose side she is on, but she is prepared to talk about with people from each perspective and hear their views as well as taking the time to look at the evidence based on the facts and not the scaremongering from the press. Worth reading for anyone interested in the most recognisable of our wild creatures.