Media content analysis of wild red foxes in the UK
Student Spotlight - Katherine (Koko) Sutter
Background
During my master’s programme at the University of Stirling, I underwent a placement with Dr Blake Morton, director of the British Carnivore Project based out of the University of Hull. One of the British Carnivore Project’s aims is to research animal psychology and behaviour, and to understand how educating the public on animal behaviour influences perceptions of carnivores. To learn more about the British Carnivore Project’s aims and findings, please visit the project website.
Fox Behaviour on Trail Cameras
Red foxes are close to the hearts of many in the United Kingdom, but they are also an animal that receives harsh judgements for being a modern pest to many cities. Urban foxes are often regarded as being different from their rural counterparts, but how true are these allegations? Part of the British Carnivore’s ongoing research includes examining whether urban foxes are truly as bold as many people claim compared to more rural foxes. To test this, the British Carnivore Project devised puzzle feeders for foxes to exploit. These puzzles feature different mechanisms that require foxes to problem solve to receive a food reward.
Various puzzles were placed in different locations across the UK in both remote and urban areas to test how readily the foxes interacted with the mechanisms. Trail cameras were set up to video record any animal interactions. I worked on analysing trail camera footage and conducted inter-observer reliability testing with PhD student Kristy Adaway, who you can follow on Twitter @KristyAnna9.
Kristy and I analysed whether and when a fox first appeared in the video by recording the date, video number and whether the first fox captured acknowledged the puzzle. While observing the foxes behaviour towards the puzzle, we recorded if the fox was hesitant, if/when they touched the puzzle and if/when they tried to exploit the puzzle. If a fox attempted to exploit a puzzle but did not succeed in solving the puzzle, we recorded whether another fox tried to touch or solve the puzzle within two weeks of the first fox appearing. To perform inter-observer reliability testing, we both recorded the time and duration of each animal encounter, and our observations surrounding behaviour, and then compared our findings.
My time working through the trail camera footage was not to compare the differences between how urban and rural foxes interacted with the puzzles, but instead to aid Kristy in her ongoing PhD research. If you are interested in learning about the results and how location played a role in fox boldness, check out the British Carnivore Project’s publication linked at the end of this blog.
Foxes in the Media
When considering where public perceptions of UK carnivores originate, it is important to acknowledge the influence the media has on portrayals of animals. Acknowledging how the media describes carnivores, and the types of news stories they publish, can influence how the public views and understands animals they encounter.
To gain insight into how the media portrays red foxes in the UK, I conducted an online news article search. I initiated the search on Google, locating any news articles that related to foxes in the UK. To begin, I typed relevant search terms including the word “fox” with changing adjectives before the word (i.e. red, urban, rural) and location words (i.e. United Kingdom, UK, England, Scotland, Wales) through Google News and Google. In total, I collected 285 articles and started several analyses on their content. For all of the articles found, I listed their URL, the article’s title, the publication, the location of the fox mentioned and the date of publication.
My first analysis was a term search to uncover whether or not certain words were mentioned within the articles. There were a total of 23 terms searched for which related to negative assumptions made about foxes. This included perceived negative behaviours of foxes and how urban foxes might act differently than rural individuals. The terms used were as follows: pest, vermin, bold, cunning, bin, trash, litter, food, tip, disturbance, nuisance, intelligent, smart, lazy, shy, aggressive, wiley, vicious, foe, clever, menace, timid and opportunistic. The most frequently found terms in the articles were food, bin and pest. I compiled an Excel sheet noting each time individual terms were in an article, and then created a separate document where I recorded lists of sentences where the terms were used to understand the context of the terms within the article.
Further analyses were conducted to observe whether articles played into certain beliefs about foxes, and whether they promoted such beliefs. For these analyses, I marked yes/no if the article promoted the belief and then added relevant passages which showcase whether they promoted or refuted the belief. There were five beliefs I explored within the articles to uncover which were being promoted by the media, including: that foxes raid bins, that foxes are bold, that foxes are cunning and intelligent, that foxes attack cats and/or pets and that foxes eat birds and/or eggs (including hens and game birds). The belief that foxes raid bins was the most commonly discussed, with 51 articles promoting the belief. A later separate analysis was conducted to see how often the terms “wolf” and “rewild” were cited to begin to understand whether media discussions about foxes were being linked to these other conservation debates. Wolves were only mentioned five times and rewilding twice, but further online searches will have to be done.
Public Attitudes
Depicting wildlife in a negative light can, of course, have consequences for those species in terms of swaying public attitudes towards them. Portrayals of foxes in news articles, for instance, which repeatedly cite words such as food, bin and pest may influence public attitudes towards foxes and other UK carnivores. If the media publishes a skewed perception of how these animals behave, it could impact the lives of the animals themselves, such as encouraging more culls, traps or illegal fox killings. It is crucial to compare media content with scientific studies to verify the extent to which such beliefs are appropriately portrayed versus being sensationalised and falling short of reality. Some of the British Carnivore Project’s recent work, for instance, combats common misconceptions of carnivores by researching how true animal behaviour and psychology aligns with the public’s understanding of those animals, such as bin-raiding behaviour in foxes.
Recent Publications
The media content analysis I performed (and outlined above) is still on-going, so the data presented here are preliminary and solely from my time doing the news article searches. Future work done by the British Carnivore Project will expand upon these initial findings and the final results may differ as more data are collected.
If you are interested in learning more about the British Carnivore Project’s latest work, feel free to reach out to me by email (kas00453@students.stir.ac.uk) or check out Dr. Blake Morton’s current research through his website or on Twitter @DrBlakeMorton. You can also read more about the British Carnivore Project’s most recent publication on urban fox boldness and their upcoming publication on how animal psychology research changes public attitudes.
Thank you for reading!