I guess they were coming back to pick them up again later?

And totally agree about fox hunting. Chasing an animal to exhaustion and ripping them apart with dogs is just savagery. Literally animal torture for fun.

I’ve not read the full story but there’s nothing hypocritical about being pro conservation and wanting to manage a fox population.

Foxes will absolutely lay waste to any ground laying birds, and they have no natural predators so you can figure it where that ends up.