Fox shoots hunter, seeks legal advice

Two people now have sent me a link to this story, first appearing in the Moscow Times but re-written by Stuff.co.nz – either by their Russian correspondent, or maybe by someone in their 500-strong cute animal stories department – about a fox that shot a hunter in Belarus.

Apparently the hunter took a long shot at his russet prey, wounded it, and got closer to perform the coup de grace with his double barrelled shotgun – at which point, apparently, the fox leaped at the man, there was a struggle for the gun and the fox managed to pull the trigger, wounding the 40-year-old Belarussian before making his escape.

Now this is a quirky story, and just the sort of thing that Stuff loves to serve up to Friday readers burnt out on all their hard news (like stories about Julian Assange’s haircuts), but I think they’ve fallen short on their fact-checking: I ran the details past David Bain’s legal team, who came up with the following points.

1) In order to both aim the shotgun and pull the trigger the fox would have had to contort itself in a highly unlikely manner. The defence team points out the fox’s lack of opposable thumbs and unfamiliarity with firearms and presents these in contrast with the abilities of the hunter.

2) Bloody paw prints found on the weapon were in fact made in chicken blood. These date to an outing a week prior to the incident when the fox ‘borrowed’ the hunter’s shotgun without his knowledge. The defence team regrets the loss of the weapon in question, as DNA analysis would have cleared their client irrefutably. However it is possible to speculate that revenge for this incident provided the hunter with a motive for his otherwise unprovoked attack.

3) Finally, the defence team points to a message found afterwards which was formed from twigs and berries to spell out (in admittedly poor Belarussian) “You’re the only one who deserved to live”. Who but the hunter could have left this message? Was regret over the initial shooting the motive for his clearly self-inflicted wound?

At the very least I think these facts cast a reasonable doubt on the story presented in such a one-sided manner by Stuff.co.nz. It should also be mentioned that other details exist which might cast a clearer light on the fox’s version of events, but that these have been suppressed by the courts.

So in conclusion I think the only verdict we can safely reach in the case of “fox shoots hunter” is ‘innocent’ – whereas the sub-editor who captioned Stuff’s picture with the underwhelming “CRAFTY: A fox” is seriously guilty – of either being way overworked or seriously bored. In fact, to anyone who can do better – PUN COMPETITION KLAXON! – leave your fox-caption as a comment and I’ll send you a chocolate fish (digital).