Fuss about Foxes

A four week old baby has been attacked by an urban fox and is recovering in hospital. Now as with any parent, the thought of a child being injured or harmed in any way makes you worry about your own and of course for this little baby and his family the last week has been a nightmare.

But can we please have a reality check? The child is alive, he will grow up just fine. Children go through scrapes and bumps every day of the year and they grow up into normal, healthy and well adjusted adults. Yes, we have foxes in our cities who might very well treat a newborn in the same way as a chicken, but we should never forget that we are very privileged in the West to live in environments where such occurrences are rare indeed.

But what is still not rare is natal and neo-natal infant death. According to SANDS, over 17 babies are stillborn or die in their first month of life every single day. That means over 6,000 babies each year. On top of that put all the miscarriages and pre-24 week stillbirths where a death certificate is not provided.

And don’t start me on the 180,000 plus children aborted every year.

And yet our headline is one fox mauling an infant’s hand? Perspective please. Or perhaps it’s easy to make a fuss about one injured little boy to avoid talking about the tens of thousands of dead children in our midst?