What is everyone talking about this week: How to get rid of the foxes on your roof?

The foxes on the roof of Google’s building in King's Cross are staring down the barrel of a gun. It’s only metaphorical for now — but, soon enough, it may not be. The vulpines made their way up the Thomas Heatherwick edifice last spring, using lifts, staircases and good old-fashioned gumption; ultimately to reign over a patch of land that overlooks Meta and Central Saint Martins and raise litter upon litter of cubs in the tech giant’s roof garden. Some 250 trees were planted there in 2024 to reaffirm its commitment to the environment (as they say). Foxes, enterprising to the last, decided to take this rewilding initiative into their own paws.

Now, Google wants its roof back: and the squatters will have to be culled, unless the Silicon Valley behemoth can humanely relocate them to the Cotswolds. This probably won’t help: urban foxes are unlikely to survive a move to the country, experts believe, unless they manage to find an environment that is not so different from that in which they grew up (Soho Farmhouse, perhaps?). The news comes hot on the heels of a proposed ban on trail hunting, which has reopened a time-old debate over human-vulpine relations. The actor Ryan Gosling recently emerged as the animal’s latest champion after he told Radio 1 last month that we Britons are not ‘celebrating’ our foxes enough. ‘They were hunted,’ he gushed, ‘and now, they have free reign of the city!’ Well, quite.

Against him are those who believe Reynard is pure vermin. As they are not legally classified as pests, authorities have no incentive to control their sprawl, prompting some to take more drastic measures. Bruce Lindsay-Smith, whom The Times once called ‘Britain’s pre-eminent fox killer’, has been exterminating skulks in London’s back gardens for years (his open firearm certificate means he can do so legally) and there are strong suspicions that the Tottenham foxes made famous by Sir David Attenborough in his 2026 documentary, Wild London, were poisoned by residents after they were found dead near the allotment they called home as recently as March.

Perhaps relocating those at Google HQ is the humane solution, after all. Although might I suggest a move to another city, instead? The blueprint was set a month ago when a fox boarded a cargo ship at Southampton, headed west, and is now living happily in the Bronx Zoo in New York City. It’s either that or Bruce. I know which of the two I’d rather pick.

This feature originally appeared in the April 8, 2026, issue of Country Life. Click here for more information on how to subscribe.