FOX

[mikehawthorne]

my protest to roadkill, got fed up with choc box photos at a club i belonged to, wanted people to sit up. if i upset any one i apologize.

by the way the sky was not fake and i nearly ended up like the fox with some of the essex drivers.

[Dr. Harout]

Sad shot.

[Birma]

A very powerful image Mike - thanks for sharing.

As a useless side fact, that particular fox would have caused problems in some local authorities: if a dead animal is in the verge then it is a local / district matter, and if it is in the road it is a county / highways matter. When they lie across the curb like that then both sides will argue that the other has to go and clear it up - isn't local government a wonderful thing!

[David Kilpatrick]

A very powerful image Mike - thanks for sharing.

As a useless side fact, that particular fox would have caused problems in some local authorities: if a dead animal is in the verge then it is a local / district matter, and if it is in the road it is a county / highways matter. When they lie across the curb like that then both sides will argue that the other has to go and clear it up - isn't local government a wonderful thing!

Round here it is a 'parliament of crows' matter and the dead fox ceases to be much of a problem after a couple of days - sometimes with the help of seagulls, hawks, owls, probably rats though I've never seen them.

David

[Javelin]

As a useless side fact, that particular fox would have caused problems in some local authorities: if a dead animal is in the verge then it is a local / district matter, and if it is in the road it is a county / highways matter. When they lie across the curb like that then both sides will argue that the other has to go and clear it up - isn't local government a wonderful thing!

Be fun to move it back and forth and watch the crews go out and not pick it up

[KevinBarrett]

Be fun to move it back and forth and watch the crews go out and not pick it up

Gross! Would the act of moving it be any fun though?

[David Kilpatrick]

There was a local craftsman here, Pascal Norris, who collected such complete dead roadkill - notably badgers - and used their skins to make African-style drums. He eventually became famous, by dying of anthrax (they never were able to prove it came from an infected animal) and putting a village hall into spectacular quarantine as a result of his death. He had taught drumming classes to adults using his lethal drums. Everyone who attended had to be screened, and then they found anthrax spores in the hall:

So, move the roadkill, but expect to pay $0.5m to Sabre to fly over from the USA, wrap your house in plastic and fumigate for a week...

David

[Javelin]

Well it very likely came from the animals. the strains that form spores do so when the host dies. Anthrax is a lot more common than people think. but it's rare to be the type that can first form spores and second able to infect people. every country has spotanious outbreaks here and there of people contracting anthrax and have all the way back through history. the spores can stay dangerous for hundreds of years. so either the animals or he exposed the dust from a mouse that died in his house 50 years ago .. Why did they import help from the USA? they've been fumigation buildings like that for 40 years shouldn't be be that rare even over there.

[Javelin]

sometimes I think the scientists need to speak to the farmers. when the host dies the bacteria either turns into or produces the spores which need a warm wet place with nutrients to grow and the host stops providing that which triggers the response. so that research kinda proves what CFIA already were acting on but maybe not with the knowledge this could happen. I'f I visit a farm while in the US or out of the country we are not allowed by law to visit a farm back home for 2 weeks after return. (I think it's the same in the US) I was always told that it's not bugs but anthrax and a few other diseases that can live in soil and are spread by shoes or anything that can transfer soil

[David Kilpatrick]

I have a garden where I think the topsoil is now mostly chickenshit where it isn't dogpoo or goatdroppings. When we had the foot and mouth scare, they never found our rescued cashmere and angora goats (all died peacefully of old age eventually) and when we had the bird flu scare they never knew about our chickens.

I am personally responsible for walking more dangerous animal-excrement related particles through international airports than most farmers - they use wellies, I just wear my shoes and the shoes go where I go

One of my most memorable photo commissions in the last few years was photographing 'chicken heaven' - a huge unit full of pure white chickens with one cockerel for every two dozen hens, illuminated in false daylight which mimicked the breeding season optimum daylight hours etc. When I turned up, I had to strip - to nothing - alongside the manager and go through a disinfectant shower and so did my tripod! The Dynax 9xi was allowed through after being wiped with antiseptic wipes, all over, no need to shower it. I wore a sort of white overall (and nothing else, really strange experience) while photographing this chicken farm. There were over 10,000 chickens around me and while I was working, they flew up and landed on my head and on the camera. They had plenty of space and the entire shed (the size of a field) was immaculately clean.

These were not egg layers for eggs to eat, they were producing eggs to hatch destined to be Marks and Spencer chicken products. A few weeks later, someone 'liberated' a bunch of the birds and we got hold of three. I called the farm to see if they wanted them back and of course, no way! Their perfectly sterile, antiseptic life had been violated.

A few years later, the entire colony was roasted alive when the sheds caught fire. The press reported it, but I don't think they had any conception of what they were reporting. Our laying hens never got killed, we don't eat them - they are allowed to retire and lay an uneconomic number of eggs a year until they eventually drop off the perch, which can be a surprising 10 years old or more. Young cockerels - different matter...

David

[Javelin]

watch.. or the airports will start cheking you for chicken poop while your shoes are off.

They have sniffers here at some airports. you stand in them and all these nozzels blow a puff of air htne sniff you (sounds just like my wiener dog looking for crumbs too) and i know for a fact. horse pop can set them off. then your in a world of grief while they check you all out...

don't ask how I know this..

[David Kilpatrick]

watch.. or the airports will start cheking you for chicken poop while your shoes are off.

They have sniffers here at some airports. you stand in them and all these nozzels blow a puff of air htne sniff you (sounds just like my wiener dog looking for crumbs too) and i know for a fact. horse pop can set them off. then your in a world of grief while they check you all out...

don't ask how I know this..

Well, if that is the case, they will find it - I tend to wear just a couple of pair of shoes for a year or two, then throw them away and replace (I do not have lots of shoes!). Both my regular pairs usually have chicken poo stuck to the sole, dried, no big problem to me - but it would show. Not been a problem yet. Our chickens sit on the house doorstep when it rains, you can't get in or out without treading in it.

David

[Javelin]

be thank full your not raising cows Chickens could be the A900's maskot ! when the F828 came out Sony posted a really horrible picture of some ducks from a pre production camera on their japanese web site. and the STF forum became all about Ducks. forthe previous cameras it was coke cans ect... for sony Alpha it could be chickens !!