"Non solo cuccioli" (not only puppies) is an italian shelter dog adoption website. I known the webmistress. She also picks stories on adoption, cohabitation of pets, and rescue of animals.

Some months ago I read about a fox rescue: an happy ending story of an incidental fox encounter. I'll (hope to correctly) translate it in english

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A dad wrote us: our son was going to the mountains with his car, it was a cool and rainy evening when the headlights lights up an animal crossing the road just before the car. The hit was unavoidable, he stopped the car and got off to see what had been happened but there was anything on the road not even at the sides, so he got in the car and started up again.

The day after coming back home he stopped again exactly when he hit that animal, on the road was anything but looking along the slope he noticed near a pine a fox, motionless but apparently still alive. He phoned to inform us, so we called the forest rangers but they said to leave there the animal and so they have to take it (but when?)... and the fox is considered an harmful animal... In that moment we thought that it wasn't the case to leaving it there, our son picked up the fox with a blacket (took by the girl who was with him, in her arms) and came home. When we saw it, the fox surely was a bit shocked but apparently healty, so we gave it something to eat and to drink noticing that the fox liked it. The day after we carried the fox to the vet, arousing amazement of the customers and the vet himself. Fortunately the vet confirmed that wasn't nothing broken, not event flesh wounds. Coming back home we didn't know what to do, obviously we could not keep at home a wild fox (even if it was docile as a cat... see the photos). We called a park that rehabilitate wildlife, but we weren't satisfied by that solution...



After two days in the tavern (and some damages) we noticed that the wild nature of the fox was winning the day, it seemed to be healty, so we decided to take the fox back in the zone where it was found. Therefore, found a kennel, we undertake the journey, arrived in the zone we gone back up a dirt road, obviously far from the State road, and here we released the fox after the days spent with humans...



Who knows what the fox learnt from this experience, we surely learnt a lot.

A neat story, and cool pictures. So glad there was a happy ending to this story..


But I'm wondering about the wildlife services involved...

wildstray wrote:

...and the fox is considered an harmful animal...

Since when is a healthy fox a harmful animal?

Grazie, for sharing this nice story.


foxes as wild predators are seen here by many people as dangerous, mostly because of the propaganda of the hunters and the tales.

@Ultra: I dunno how exactly translate... foxes, wild boars, nutrias, deers and other wild animals are accounted literally as "harmful animals" Harmful for who/what???
Wildlife services weren't involved bacause the wildlife is managed by diffent boards depending the species. Big predators as wolves, bears and eagles are managed by the forestal service... absolutly there's any concern in case of retrievals and recover of wound animals. Instead, small fauna is managed by local boards as the Province and in some cases the ASL (the districtual sanitary authority). It's sadly notorious the case of the brutal killing of a fox by the provincial police. Two years ago, a fox fell into an excavation of a construction site. Workers call the forestal rangers... but they, for jurisdiction, forwarded the request to the provincial police. Two provincial police officer, gotten to the site, killed the poor fox kicking and smashing in its head with a stone When the workers charged the police of cruelty and killing of animal (crime theoretically punishable up till 1,5 years of prison or up till 15000 euros of fine), police managers defended their officers producing that "foxes are huntable animals, so killing a fox isn't a crime" Now you can understand because many people decide to treat and release animals it alone...

@Kibib: Prego
This is the point! The big problem are the tales and propaganda of the hunters... they invented the term "harmful animals"!

Ouch! First the stray dogs thing, and now this too.

Something is really screwy with this picture, talk about a messed up system.

I had no idea just how bad things are over there for animals...

Changing environment, global warming, everything impacts everything, for every action -> equal and opposite reaction. Everything we have done to the environment= the environment doing something back to us, as soon as people realize that the sooner we can fix it, and it's getting pretty late...