Sunday 6 June 2010

Hackney fox attacks babies

This story from the Telegraph says a fox attacked nine-month old twins in their own home: "Police were called to the three-storey Victorian terraced house in Hackney, on Saturday night after the toddlers' parents, Nick and Pauline Koupparis, raised the alarm at 10pm."

The Sun reports: "Last night Isabella remained in intensive care while Lola was being treated on a separate ward... Cops went round telling residents to keep their doors and ground-floor windows closed. Neighbour Fatma Pekcam, 22, said: "There have always been foxes around here but now they're so tame they're not afraid of anything."

A couple of weeks ago my flatmate was confronted by the family of foxes living in a hole next to the bins in our communal garden. They didn't bother running away - just stared at him in a slightly unnerving fashion.

As an aside, the fox attack appears to have happened in MP Meg Hillier's constituency. Meg's predecessor, Brian Sedgemore, once had a spat with Clive Aslet, then editor of Country Life over fox-hunting.

Bloggers provide latest on Hackney gang violence:

Loving Dalston provides news of cover-up over knife fights on Kingsland Road

Hackney Hive reports another London Fields shooting with a man in hospital

7 comments:

  1. Its funny how the father (Nick Koupparis) has a picture of himself with his dog on his facebook profile but no mention of the dog on any news articles.

    My dog would kill any animal that entered my house and hurt my child. Infact, no animal would get into my house without my dog noticing.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if their own dog attacked the children or if perhaps David Cameron and his chums are in on this.

    So much for democracy.

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  2. Where does it say that the dog was even in the house at the time? Maybe someone had taken it for a walk?

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  3. Thanks for the comments - the suggestion that this might not have been a fox attack seems to have come from this Guardian piece by Terry Nutkins which says: "This has been reported as an attack by a fox, but I am doubtful. Domestic animals are far more likely to attack humans as they do not attempt to avoid us as foxes do."

    He then says that foxes shouldn't be persecuted. I can't follow his logic though. I imagine foxes avoid humans because for centuries humans have persecuted them. Now that we don't it's not a surprise that they aren't so afraid of us. It looks like foxes don't rule out coming into our homes. And if a fox is hungry enough to walk into a house why wouldn't it try and find out whether it could eat a child?

    Obviously its very rare - but then rare things seem to happen in hackney quite frequently.

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  4. I hope this is thoroughly investigated as it looks very much like a Tory conspiracy to persecute the fox. I would like the media to push this story to ensure that there is a thorough forensic inquiry into whether there was evidence of fox in the room and if the bite marks were that of a fox or another animal or even human!

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  5. Agree with most of the comments - there's something about this story that doesn't smell right. I think that it will go down as another Madeline McCann thing - whatever happens, there will be many people who doubt the story and question the motives of the people involved.

    I notice that someone is quoted as saying 'they're so tame....they're not afraid of anything'. Someone else uses the word 'afraid' when referring to foxes. It is sad that this is our (human) relation to anthing that is not our species - the whole natural world has to be 'afraid' of us - any non-human creature that is not afraid of us needs culling or something. Any reaction to us other than fear scares the hell out of us and we want to start killing immediately.

    Finally I think the people of Hackney have more to worry about than foxes. To listen to the furore about this story you'd think we'd been invaded by martians. I wonder how many Hackney residents have been stabbed or otherwise badly injured by other humans since this story began.

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  6. I live in Mile End. My brother sent me this the other day. It's been on youtube for over a month. Links a string of fox attacks in the UK to a new strain of rabies and a cover up. Thought it was a bit far fetched but now I don't know what to think!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ba5IocGtI8

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  7. The profile on facebook mentioned above with Nick and his dog, belongs to my husband Nick Koupparis and the dog pictured with him is our basset hound/lab, Scrappy. Nick, Scrappy and I live in MICHIGAN USA. The two Nick Koupparis' are cousins. We wish the very best for our cousins in the UK and wish the twins a speedy recovery.

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