BBC Scotland is saying a fellow shot a 38 pound fox, and yes there actually is a picture (see above)!
Alan Hepworth, 69, from Rothiemay, Aberdeenshire said, "I could only hold it for a while because it was so heavy and was nearly as big as a roe deer." He added: "I'm 5ft 7in, and it was 4ft 9in. When I held it up, it was almost the same size as me."
Jonathan Reynolds, senior research scientist at the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT), said: "A 38lbs fox would have been unthinkable a few years ago. We don't know why they are getting bigger, but one possible explanation is that they are getting better fed in urban areas."
Actually, no. There is no actual evidence this giant fox was what is claimed.
There was no independent weighing of the fox and the story itself is not credible. For starters, a fox of this size could be sold for thousands of pounds as a taxidermy curiosity to any bar in Britain. And yet Mr. Hepworth told the newspaper: “If I’d have thought more about it at the time I’d have maybe taken it to a taxidermist, and kept it as a memento, but we just buried it like all the other foxes we shot.”
Right. A man who routinely shoots foxes thought next to nothing about a fox three times normal size? Not a chance.
And this just-buried fox was not dug up to at least mount the bones? Nope.
What about the picture? Simple forced perspective of the kind done every day by fisherman presenting 5-pound fish as 10-pounders. Want to see what that looks like in a famous "giant pig" hoax Click here.
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Note that of the 6,283 fox weighed here, the largest male foxes in Scotland weighed, on average, 7,380 grams (16.27 pounds) and the largest in Denmark weighed, on average, weighed 7,600 grams (16.75 pounds).
- Related Links:
** "Largest Fox Ever" Underscores the Point
** Variation in the Body Size of the Red Fox
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