A story from Sussex (UK)

A neighbour of mine, who lives on a small farm about 3 or 4 miles from my village, discovered that a fox was taking his chickens. In spite of the usual wire precautions, etc., it happens. So he stayed up one night, caught the fox in the act of trying to dig into the coop area, and shot it.

The predation, however, recurred - so, once again, he stayed up, found the fox and shot it.

He actually shot 7 foxes before it stopped. The last fox body seemed odd to him so he inspected it closely and found evidence of surgery and stitching on a hind leg. A rough and ready post-mortem found that there were steel pins in the leg, which had obviously been mended by a vet.

His conclusion? That some "townies" had gathered up some urban foxes and released them into the countryside - motive unknown...