"Everyone who lives in the countryside knows that nature left to its own devices is a brutal place."

Odd. OK there are things that I don't find pleasant, and even once just in our garden (OK artificial), I can't pretend I enjoyed once seeing a sparrowhawk taking down and proceeding to eat a collard dove.. But the thing about nature in my own innocent/ignorant view is that it, left alone, will always find a balance. In that context, it is irrelevant whether I "approve" of every action a predator (which after all has a perfect right to exist and I believe forms part of the balance) may take. More nature has its ways that are perhaps not for me to question.

Foxes: sure we have kept chicken, ducks and geese in the past and I know what they can do. I don't go as far as blaming them for taking a ready made meal we could have taken better care of though.