Wildlife center staffers go to extreme lengths to care for orphaned fox cub as they nurse it back to health
Workers at a Virginia wildlife center are going out of their way to outfox an orphaned newborn red fox in their care — by dressing up as her mom.
A video shared on the Richmond Wildlife Center’s Facebook page on Tuesday showed Executive Director Melissa Stanley wearing a large furry fox mask — complete with a moving toothy mouth — and rubber gloves while feeding the hungry youngster from a syringe.
The tiny kit — the term for a juvenile red fox — is seen enthusiastically suckling milk as she is perched atop a large stuffed animal fox that is also supposed to resemble her mother.
Later in the recording, the adorable furball is seen cuddling up to a smaller stuffed fox toy in her enclosure.
A post accompanying the heartwarming “Fox milk time” video explained why staffers play dress-up when interacting with the kit.
“It’s important to make sure that the orphans that are raised in captivity do not become imprinted upon or habituated to humans,” it said.
“To prevent that, we minimize human sounds, create visual barriers, reduce handling, reduce multiple transfers amongst different facilities, and wear masks for the species.”
All those steps make it more likely the kit could be reintroduced into the wild someday.
The juvenile red fox wound up at the rescue center on Feb. 29 after a man walking his dog spotted her in an alley in Richmond.
Having mistaken the kit for a kitten, the dog walker brought her to the Richmond Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
She was less than 24 hours old and her umbilical stump was still attached.
Wildlife center staff tried to track down the kit’s mother and her den site in hopes of reuniting the family. They found the den site, but were told by the grounds superintendent that the foxes had been trapped and carted away.
Stanley said she suspects the fox kit either fell out of a trap or off the back of the trapper’s truck.
Staff at the wildlife center have been taking turns feeding the kit every two to four hours, all while wearing the uncanny fox mask covering the entire head.
“The goal is to release animals back into the wild, not only to give them a greater chance of survival, but to recognize their own species and to reproduce to carry on their wildlife population,” Stanley said.
The plan is now to transfer the orphaned Richmond kit to the Animal Education and Rescue Organization in northern Virginia, which is caring for a trio of other kits, so that they all could eventually be released back into the wild.
With Post wires
