Not long ago I had noticed a fox turning up at feeding time that was very mangy on his hind quarters. He had lost most of his fur on his back and also his tail and one of his hind legs was injured. Despite this the fox was able to run around relatively quickly on three legs and sometimes he put his injured leg on the ground and seemed to put a little weight on it. But when he ran he didn’t use the injured leg. I made sure that he had a very good portion of the food every evening as I was concerned that he might not get enough to eat due to his injuries and sickness, but I needn’t have worried as the fox was able to hold his own and managed to chase off his rivals at feeding time.
I was quite worried about the fox and decided to call a wildlife rescue centre to get advice on what I could do to help him. In particular I wanted to see if there was any medication I could give him for the mange. To my disappointment, despite calling several wildlife rescue centres, I found them to be not very helpful. None of them wanted to help me with the fox. One charity said they had spent 2 weeks trying to trap a fox in someone’s garden and had only managed to catch some cats and that this time of year it wasn’t a good idea to trap a fox because it could have young if it was a female, or even if it was a male, it could be helping to feed some young. I was told that despite there being a very good medication available against mange, it had to be administered to the sick animal only, as it was dangerous to leave it where another animal could get it. The only medicine freely available and that was harmless to other animals was homeopathic, but the lady at the rescue centre was of the opinion that it didn’t work and was a waste of time. Faced with this barrage of unhelpfulness I decided I would just try to feed up the fox in the hope that his immune system would kick in and conquer the disease.
A few more days passed and I got more worried about the fox as he seemed to be hungrier than the others and sat in the field by my fence for long periods waiting to be fed. This was most likely because he was having trouble feeding himself. I decided to contact a friend of mine who was a wildlife lover and had some contacts in the wildlife world. She rang around a few wildlife contacts and then got back to me telling me that she had been told that the best thing was to contact the RSPCA. This she had done and given them my number and she said they would be contacting me. I didn’t hold out much hope because I knew that the RSPCA doesn’t go searching for a wild animal and will only get involved if an animal is easy to locate, however as the fox was coming to me every evening it was just possible that they would consider doing something for him.
To my surprise they did call me the next day and after I had filled her in on the fox's situation, the officer I spoke to said she would locate a fox trap for me to try to catch the fox and then they would take it to one of their RSPCA wildlife hospitals. Later that day she arrived with a very large fox trap that shut automatically and we set it up that afternoon to try to catch the fox. I put some dog meat inside and also around the outside to try to entice the fox to go in. Not long after I saw he was around and he trotted over towards the plates of dog meat, but when he saw the trap he did a double take and ran off. He then sat some distance away looking suspiciously at the trap and weighing up what to do next. It was very difficult because the other foxes turned up to be fed but I couldn’t put any food out for them as I wanted the sick and injured fox to be hungry enough to want to go into the trap to eat, because that was the only food available. The fox ate the food that I had put out around the trap, but didn’t go in the trap to eat the food inside. I began to think that it would take many attempts at trying to catch him and that we might not be successful at all like the person from the wildlife charity had said. I checked the trap frequently and on one occasion I actually thought he was inside, but then I realized it was only the glare of the evening sun. I went to bed thinking that it would be very difficult to catch the fox.
The next morning I was amazed and delighted to see that the fox was in the trap. Obviously he was very hungry and hunger had got the better of caution, so he had decided to go in. I was so pleased as I thought that now we could get some help for him and give him a fighting chance to get better. I went and got one of my horse rugs to put over the trap so the fox was in a kind of den. As it was drizzling the rug kept him dry and I also put some more food in the trap for him. Next I called the RSPCA who said they would be around as soon as possible to collect him.
An RSPCA inspector came a few hours later and I asked her to please ask the wildlife hospital to try to help him and not to just euthanize him due to him being sick and injured and she assured me that this particular hospital was very good and they would try their best, but she also said that the RSPCA did not believe in keeping wild animals in captivity, they always released them back into the wild, so at that point I was concerned for his chances as his mange was very bad and of course his back leg was injured too. I told her that I didn’t want to feel that he was managing in the wild and that I had been complicit in shortening his life by catching him and handing him over to an uncertain future.
I waited a few days before calling the RSPCA call centre to see what had happened to the fox. When I called them they said they didn’t have any more information on the case and they doubted that the RSPCA wildlife hospital would give any information out. I resolved to call the wildlife hospital directly myself. I had to leave a voicemail message asking for an update and about an hour or so later I got a call back. As I had feared it wasn’t good news. They had X-rayed his back leg and found he had an old fracture that was badly aligned so they had decided to euthanize him. They said that had the fracture been a recent one then they would have tried to set it.
I felt very deflated. I had really hoped they would have been able to fix his leg and I knew that there was good effective medicine available for mange so he could have got better. This is the third time I have involved the RSPCA in helping an injured wild animal and on all three occasions it has ended with the animal being euthanized. I have tried to rationalize it by thinking that he was obviously struggling and must have been in discomfort with the mange and pain from the fractured leg and that at least he isn’t suffering any more. He would probably have died eventually anyway from his illness and the injury, but nevertheless I still felt that I had betrayed him. He trusted me and came every night to be fed and I had repaid him by catching him and sending him to his death. I am really not sure what I will do next time.