In article , Alan Holmes
writes

Interesting, why would you need to protect carrots from foxes?

I only ask because I've planted carrots and we have regular fox visitors.



Well, according to a spokesman for the Nepalese ambassador, Dr Singha
Bahadur Basnyat, they like to eat both carrots and spinach. Full story
copied from the Telegraph online follows:

Russo-Finnish dispute over Kensington foxes
By Catherine Milner
(Filed: 22/09/2002)


Today's marchers in London may wish to make a small detour: a family of
foxes has sought sanctuary from would-be hunters by claiming diplomatic
asylum in a friendly ambassador's garden in the centre of the capital.

The Finnish ambassador, Pertti Salolainen, has been sheltering, and,
according to his diplomatic neighbours, feeding a family of foxes that
has set up home under a shed in the garden of his residence next to
Kensington Palace.

"This is Finnish territory and these are Finnish foxes so nobody in a
red coat or hounds is allowed on my premises," Mr Salolainen has
declared defiantly. "They are free to live here and they bring a
wonderful quality to our life."

The diplomat has become so fond of his vulpine companions that he has
given some of them names and even rigged up spotlights so that he can
view the family - parents and five cubs - playing at night.

He has also taken a number of photographs of them, which he has included
in a calendar circulated to other ambassadors living in Kensington
Palace Gardens, a row of elegant mansions mostly given over to
embassies.

The fact that the foxes have uprooted most of the bedding plants in his
garden in their search for worms and grubs does not bother Mr
Salolainen. Nor does the fact that the vixen fed her cubs on ducks and
other birds taken from a nearby pond.

He told The Telegraph yesterday: "Foxes have a very, warm, affectionate
and caring family life. The parents, when they meet, kiss and hug each
other, like we do, and the parents play with their kids."

Mr Salolainen, who has been in London since 1996, added: "I also have
lots of photographs of them playing with the tennis balls taken from the
Russian residence. They play for hours and hours, running, hugging and
wrestling.

"We don't feed them - they live off McDonald's, left by people in the
park, wood pigeons or ducks taken from the pond in Kensington Gardens.
We all think they are a nice curiosity.

"They must be very clever to have been able to survive in a 10 million
people strong city - I doubt if any dog would survive like that."

The animals are not equally loved by Mr Salolainen's neighbours,
however. The Russian ambassador, Grigory Karasin, has discovered that
the "Finnish" foxes are making nightly raids on his tennis balls.

"We do share our tennis balls with the foxes," said Mr Karasin on Friday
evening, shortly after a few sets with the Polish and Slovak
ambassadors.

It was a nuisance, he admitted, but there were no plans - despite the
long history of border disputes between Russia and Finland - to launch
reprisal raids or send the bill for the chewed balls to the Finns.

"We have open borders here and we do not mind giving them some," he
conceded. Mr Karasin said that he saw the foxes every morning and
evening. "But you can only get to within five metres of them because
then they run away."

A spokesman for the Nepalese embassy, two down from the Finnish
residence, said that their ambassador, Dr Singha Bahadur Basnyat,
supported the foxes - despite the annoyance they caused his gardener.

"The ambassador likes very much to look out at the foxes from his
window," said the spokesman. "We have a small vegetable patch and they
come and eat the spinach and carrots there sometimes, which the gardener
doesn't like very much, but generally we are pleased to see them."

The fox-loving Mr Salolainen has been a naturalist and skilled nature
photographer all his life.

He founded the Finnish branch of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature in
1972, and at a recent exhibition of his photographs in London raised
£17,000 to help the conservation of gorillas. "All my life I have been
in nature conservation," he said. "We are losing some of the battles but
I hope to win some."

Each year he collects wildflower seeds to spread among the shrubs and
trees in his garden. He has planted apple trees and there are bird
feeders and nesting boxes at the front and back of the residence.






http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...09/22/nfox22.x
ml

(watch the line break)

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Judy
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