Additional reporting by James Pallant

A fox cub has been put down after suffering a head injury feared to have been caused by a gunshot pellet.

A Gillingham resident discovered the 10-week-old animal lying injured in Johnson Avenue on Friday morning.

She alerted Patricia Chart, a volunteer for The Fox Project in Tunbridge Wells, who then travelled to the scene.

“I thought it had been hit by a car so I checked its legs to see if they moved,” said Ms Chart.

“They moved, but then I saw the blood coming from the back of his head so I thought he was bitten.”

As the 60-year-old drove to the RSPCA centre in Leybourne she noticed the young fox’s condition was deteriorating.

Surgery staff discovered the fox had a serious head injury which it is feared could have been caused by a pellet gun, although x-rays have yet to confirm this.

“I was fuming,” continued Ms Chart.

“There are a lot of foxes down there where it was found – if people are shooting them I want them to know what it is they’re actually causing.

“The mum will be looking for her cub. They are very maternal animals and we’ve done rescues where we release them back where we found them and the mother is waiting for them.”

The Fox Project says it hopes to be able to confirm the cause of the fox cub’s death on Wednesday.

The incident happened on the same day KentOnline exposed the sick world of animal abusers on TikTok.

We told how disturbing vidoes of animal cruelty were being uploaded to the site in search of likes, and with little policing from the social media giant.