The Fox and the hounders.

Mother of twins mauled by fox is threatened by animal rights activists


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1286191/Parents-twins-mauled-fox-gets-police-guard-web-attacks-animal-rights-activists.html

By Martin Delgado and Keri Sutherland
Last updated at 3:25 PM on 13th June 2010

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fox mother

Back home: Pauline Koupparis with daughter Lola on Friday. Police are ‘concerned’ over inflammatory postings on social networking sites

The parents of the children mauled by a fox are receiving police protection amid concern over threats from animal rights activists.

Officers have been assigned to guard the family home and police liaison officers are in contact with Pauline and Nicolas Koupparis.

Their nine-month-old twins Lola and Isabella suffered ‘life-changing injuries’ when they were savaged in their cots in Hackney, East London, a week ago.

Scotland Yard said it was not aware of a specific threat against the family but admitted that there was ‘concern’ over inflammatory postings on social networking sites.

Yesterday a woman phoned the Radio 4 programme Any Answers to say she had heard from friends and relatives in Hackney that Mr and Mrs Koupparis were being ‘harangued and besieged’ by animal rights activists.

The caller also said there were messages on internet sites, allegedly accusing the family of seeking publicity after their ordeal.

One anti-foxhunting group set up a Facebook page called ‘Pauline Koupparis is a lying b****’.

The page has since been taken down.

More...

* Crackdown on urban foxes after twin baby girls were attacked as they slept

Another group, calling itself ‘Urban Fox Defenders’, has attracted more than 500 members.

One, who gave her name as Alison Smith, wrote: ‘I really can’t see how a fox could be SO brazen as to go into a house, up the stairs, past adults, and go for two children.. .

'There is something here that simply does not add up!’
fox

Intruder: A blurry picture of the fox suspected of mauling the nine-month-old girls taken soon after the incident

Lola left hospital on Friday and Mrs Koupparis, 41, said: ‘We’ve gone through every emotion imaginable.’

Isabella, who was the more badly hurt of the pair, has been transferred from Great Ormond Street children’s hospital to the Royal London, which is nearer her home.

A police spokesman said: ‘There has been some concern about things that have been said on social networking sites.

‘There is no tangible threat but we are keeping in touch with the family.’

And how many, I wonder, of those 'Activists' are anti-Madeleines also?

How totally disgusting these"antis" are - they should hang their heads in shame.

Totally agree Calcite............how can they harangue this poor family?

May wrote:Totally agree Calcite............how can they harangue this poor family?

Because that's what they do, find someone who is suffering and make it worse. It makes them feel big and important, but in reality it covers up their true inadequacies. Just like the anti-Madeleines.

/sarc
Aww cmon, it is quite obvious that the parents were able to bite the children with sufficient skill to fool the authorities into thinking they were fox bites.
/sarc

Do these freaking idiots that accuse the parents have any understanding of forensics? There would have been swabs taken in the hospital to determine the type of animal that bit those children. So unless those morons are thinking that the parents got a fox and took it up into the room, and held it against their children, then I have no idea what they are carrying on about.

And, yes I wonder how many of them inhabit the deep dark pits of the anti Madeleines, and while there lost their grip on reality.

Hang on a minute, I am a member of an anti blood sport group and I certainly would not behave this way and neither would anyone I know, there is no one that I know who would dream of doing this and I have been involved for many years. Most people are law abiding and peaceful, please do not tar them all with the same brush as the "usual suspects".

I am interested in what the forensics will reveal in this case, to see if there is a problem with the urban fox becoming desensitised through human contact.
I know of a fox expert who has studied the grey and red fox for over forty years, in all that time he has only known two attacks on humans which were said to be a fox, weeks later this was found NOT to be the case, one the injuries were made by a cat and the other a German Shepherd pup.

There is nothing about this that makes much sense to me (I am definitely NOT saying it did not happen), but someone has said this could be a young pup became confused, but at the time this happened it fits with neither the grey or red fox breeding patterns, the pup would not have been old enough. Also foxes are much smaller than most people think they are, a red fox can weigh as much as a domestic cat! I read that the babies uncle said the fox had then through the cot bars, this is odd, foxes are actually canny, why would they try and get them through the bars when they could have easily jumped over the top?

There could be a problem here with people that have been having human contact with foxes and feeding them and the boundaries have become muddled and blurred over time.

But foxes, even urban ones are generally scared of humans, yet this one is said to have not run out of the room despite two adults screaming and shouting and waving lumps of wood at it?

I am passing no judgement until I learn what the forensic report says. There are many things here that really make me sit up and think, not least how on earth could one fox inflict such bad injuries without anyone being alerted sooner? One bite would surely have made just one of the babies scream loudly with pain?

I know that a policeman took a picture of the fox at the patio window, why was it there despite all the fuss going on?

I hope the blood sport loving lobbyists have nothing to do with laying scent trails here, because something is telling that something is just not right.

By the way I believe the parents in what they are saying, but something else is not ringing true here. It will come out, it always does.

How strange too that this should come when this government want to repeal the blood sport hunting ban!

Rosie

If the children were not bitten by foxes, then it would be obvious from the swabs. I think you are on the right track about the odd behaviour of the fox. What if it is a tame fox, fed by hand, not scared of humans at all? Also, what if it has been in the house before, or in another house?

I am also a little puzzled about the behaviour of the fox, but I do think that if a fox had not bitten the children, then the police would already know.

I must admit Mum and I were talking about this the other day, and we were just astounded that a fox went into a house. We were also talking about how the children were bitten so badly without anyone knowing. But we came to the conclusion that the parents were doing something and couldnt hear the children, such as watching tele, had music on, or were outside.

And wild animals are unpredictable, and when humans interfere with their behaviour, they are even more unpredictable. I will be very interested to see what the police make of all this.

Diane, I understand exactly what you are saying and I agree wild animals are unpredictable, so is any animal come to that! The mother said they were watching TV the final of Britain's Got Talent, so it is quite possible that they may have had the TV on loud, but so loud they would not hear a baby's piercing distress cry? But still it is possible, it is also possible that they heard the cries but just wanted to see if they would go off asleep again and I would accept this, parents cannot run to babies each time they cry, especially if they are trying to train them to go to sleep at a certain time, but you are a mum, you would definitely know the difference between a cry for attention to a distress cry, to a cry of pain, just one of those bites must have been excruciatingly painful, how come so many and so much damage was inflicted before anyone realised something was dreadfully wrong? Why didn't they have a baby monitor?

I can actually see a cat inflicting this kind of harm, more than I can a fox. I also saw some of the bite marks on one of babies faces, there are top puncture marks but no bottom ones!
Diane it wasn't just a fox entering a house, it apparently entered it and went up two flights of stairs! Really odd! Unless some idiot has taken these foxes as cubs and hand reared them in a house, making them used to going around houses and used to human contact, I would not be at all surprised if this turns out to be the case.

Anyway I am not going to prejudge, something nasty happened to those children and the cause must be found, no matter if it is foxes, cats or other creatures. But I do take your point about the unpredictability of wild animals.

If the babies were asleep and this fox tore into them it would not have taken very long to cause a ton of harm with both claws and teeth. It would take a good 10-20 seconds for the parents to run upstairs and see what was going on and it sounds like the fox didn't even stop right away when the parents did get up there. If the fox was fearless for whatever reason, which sounds like the case, it wouldn't have stopped "feeding" as soon as the adult humans entered the room... which means these people witnesses the injuries being inflicted on their children and didn't necessarily have the tools to stop it right away. Who would expect the fox to not stop and run off as soon as the adults came up?