I don’t reckon it will be long before the Fox Cubs will be leaving their parents and start looking for their own territory. Not many make it on their own, especially dog fox. Many will not survive to their first birthday and will die one way or the other before they are a year old. The Vixen fair a bit better, but many of those wont survive either. Many will be shot. A lot will be hunted and ripped apart by hunting dogs and a lot will just not manage on their own.
Obviously we see fox on the farm and around where we live, but other than at their breeding times in the spring and part of the summer, very often we won’t see a fox for weeks and we actively encourage and look for them. There are also no organised hunts in our area that are keeping the fox numbers down. I well believe there are more urban fox than those in the countryside.
We do at times loose a chicken or two, and have seen a fox take one. Last year a holiday guest saw out of their cottage window a fox kill a chicken. They ran outside to frighten it away, but were to late. The fox left the chicken.
When those who support hunting preach that fox hunting controls vermin and keeps their number down to manageable numbers, they are preaching rubbish. Nature will control their numbers. Some hunt employees have been caught keeping cubs and young fox to release just before a days hunting. Other have been caught digging fox out of their dens or send terriers down badger holes where a fox has gone into hide. They wouldn’t need to if there were that many around.