Fantastic Mr Fox...or foul urban pest?

As Paul Gambaccini enters the great fox debate, a leading wildlife writer explains why attitudes to our 'swaggering' new neighbours have become so polarised, and reveals what's REALLY going on in our towns and cities

- Simon Barnes

WE'RE losing beloved animals from British life, and losing them fast. Many species find it hard to live in a world that humans have changed so much: red squirrels, dormice, hedgehogs, water voles, Scottish wildcats and turtle doves to name a few. Most of us would agree it's a rotten shame.

You'd think, then, that we'd have a special place in our hearts for the animals that manage to live alongside us? Species with the wit, the adaptability, the resourcefulness and the cast-iron digestion needed to make a living among humans.

But it doesn't work like that. Many people are deeply uneasy about them, and a good few hate and fear them. Species like rats, crows, gulls and feral pigeons seem to come in for particular flak.

And foxes. Perhaps especially foxes. We feel in our water that, when it comes to urban foxes, something just ain't right.

Last week radio presenter Paul Gambaccini was the latest famous name to join the great urban fox debate.

He told us that he had been forced to break up mating pairs of foxes on account of the din they make. It was, he complained, like "the sound of children being tortured".

It's not actually the mating itself; it's the sound a vixen makes to summon a male; right now is the peak (but brief) time for it.

And it's an essential activity, at least for the foxes. But Gambaccini said: "They operate with impunity." Raising the question: what sort of punishment does he believe appropriate? Surely, he implies, we should do something drastic about the terrible curse of the fox in the city.

The truth is that foxes have become part of urban life in Britain. What's more, it's irreversible. And some people really hate that.