Cemetery Foxes
For five years, I documented the foxes that live in an old English cemetery in London. I have now added a new gallery to my website that includes some of my images of these foxes which can be found by clicking on this link: Cemetery Foxes. Unlike the country foxes that live around my house, these cemetery foxes are accustomed to the presence of humans. Provided I allowed the cemetery foxes to interact with me on their terms, they were incredibly comfortable with my presence, they allowed me to photograph them. I spent many long hours watching and photographing these foxes over these years, it was a real priviledge to be able to spend time with these beautiful animals. On most days I visited the cemetery I was the only photographer there, occassionally there were one or two other photographers in the cemetery who also showed the same respect to the foxes.
Any photography in a cemetery, graveyard or other burial area has to be undertaken with great sensitvity to the people who have been buried there and those that come to visit their graves. Respect also has to be shown to the staff that work there. Over the years that I visited this old English cemetery, I got to know several members of the staff including one lovely young lady who worked in the office at the entrance to the cemetery. I also met one mother who regulary came to visit her son’s grave after he was killed in very tragic circumstances.
Over these years, knowledge of the foxes became more widely known. As well as photographers, several YouTubers visited the cemetery and posted videos of the foxes online. The emergence of new born fox cubs each Spring coincided with the flowering of bluebells in the cemetery. As knowledge of the foxes spread, this attracted a high number of photographers particularly during Spring when there were young cubs amongst the bluebells and gravestones. Unfortunately, the behaviour of some of these photographers caused the Cemetery’s owner and operator to take the decision to ban wildlife photography in the cemetery from 1 July 2025. I have reproduced the statement from the Cemetery’s website below:
“Photography
From 1 July 2025 we will no longer be permitting wildlife photography within the cemetery grounds.
The recent influx of photography has had a detrimental effect on the wildlife within the cemetery, in particular to our bluebells and fox population. A number of clubs were abandoned by the vixen due to the number of photographers near their den.
There have also been incidents where cemetery staff have been verbally abused when challenging photographers and we have received numerous complaints from bereaved visitors.
The site staff have the discretion to ask anyone to leave the cemetery grounds if it is deemed that their behaviour is a nuisance, disrespectful and/or affecting the day-to-day operation of the cemetery and crematorium as per Article 3(1) of the Local Authorities' Cemeteries Order 1977.
Strictly no drone usage is permitted on site.”
This statement does not make for easy reading. It does not portray wildlife photographers in a favourable light. From a personal perspective, one Spring I noticed that the behaviour of one vixen who had several cubs changed from one week to the next, initially she had been comfortable around people but then she became incredibly wary moving her cubs and keeping them away from people. I learned from another photographer and the cemetery staff that this vixen and her cubs had been persued and surrounded by a large number of photographers over the weekend between my visits.
Wildlife photography has become increasingly popular, with more and more people getting involved. This is potentially very positive, with more people raising awareness of the state of nature in the UK (and globally) there is more potential to bring about change for the better. Spending time with nature is also beneficial to our physical and mental wellbeing. I appreciate that photographers enjoy sharing their images, particularly on social media, and entering them in competitions. But this should not come at the cost of endangering the welfare of the animals being photographed.
