Foxes

There are three young foxes in my neighborhood. I saw them for the first time a few weeks ago, and then more recently they’ve been wandering around in front of my building. I can see them from the balcony, and watch them playing. They dragged a shoe from somewhere, and have strewn bits of wood on all the terraces below. Friday, one was gnawing on something and a second one was slowly inching up, pounced, then they play-bit at each other and then wandered off together. Puppy play. Adorable.

The mother is around, bringing back things for them to eat. More recently I’ve only seen two, then only one. I keep hoping this is because they’re able to hunt on their own and have left to find their own food. I’m afraid to think that something might have happened to them. Some people hate foxes, and nature, and anything they consider to be a nuisance. I once hitched a ride with the wildlife controller for my village, and he wanted to kill all the foxes because they competed for the same animals that hunters are allowed to kill. There’s a wild pheasant here that hunters like to shoot and taxiderm. The wildlife controller said that only those who participated in the pheasant census were allowed to shoot them, and only if the numbers were sufficient. But foxes also went after the pheasants and the controller considered that to be a waste, so he wanted to kill them all. Or most of them.

Last night the mother howled and howled. It is not mating season, and I’m hoping she wasn’t howling over the loss of one of her young. It sounded like that. The howling came from a construction site just down the hill where they’re refurbishing an old building. I wouldn’t think that anyone would be in there on a weekend to kill young foxes, although it’s possible. The young ones are so vulnerable. Sure they’re predators, but my guess is that they go after other nuisance animals like rats and mice. I’d rather have foxes then rats. Or I’d rather have foxes controlling the rat population without having poison out there wandering up the food chain, and killing birds and snakes and everything else that might go after the rats and mice.

Yesterday it rained and I didn’t hear anyone down below. They hopefully have just moved on. It’s been fun to watch them. There are elbow prints on my window sills where I’ve been leaning out to watch!