Wildlife Workers Dress Up to Care for Orphaned Fox

In the eastern state of Virginia, employees of the Richmond Wildlife Center are doing their best to act like mother foxes. They started feeding and caring for a baby fox, called a kit, when the young animal became separated from its mother.

The Associated Press reported that a video recently appeared on the center's page on the social media service Facebook. In the video, Executive Director Melissa Stanley is shown wearing a red fox mask and equipment like rubber gloves. She feeds the young fox in the video. The kit sits on top of a stuffed animal that looks like a fox. It is supposed to look like her mother, Stanley said.

The Facebook post explained why employees were wearing the fox mask to feed the baby animal. It also said workers are avoiding making human sounds and are preventing the kit from seeing its human caregivers. The post said the orphan should not become too close to humans while it is being raised by them. The measures make it more likely that the kit could be returned to the wild.

Stanley said a man brought the kit to the center on February 29. She said he found the animal on the street while walking his dog in Richmond.

Thinking she was a baby cat, the man turned her over to the Richmond Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Richmond SPCA). The Richmond SPCA is a noNPRofit organization that takes in cats and dogs without owners and finds them homes.

Wildlife center employees tried to find the kit's mother and their home, or den. They found the den, but they were told by officials that the foxes had been trapped and removed. Stanley said she thinks the fox kit either fell out of a trap or fell off the back of the trapper's truck.

Employees at the wildlife center have been taking turns feeding the kit every two to four hours. They all wear the fox mask while feeding her.

In addition to the large stuffed animal meant to look like the kit's mother, employees also put a smaller stuffed red fox in her space. She cuddles up to the smaller stuffed animal at the end of the video.

Stanley said, "The goal is to release the animals back into the wild." She added that the goal is not to just increase their chances of survival, but to raise them to recognize other animals of their kind. Another goal she said was that the animals should reproduce.

The center looked for other red fox kits of the same age and weight at other centers. Employees found three other kits in a center in northern Virginia.

The fox kit will be sent to the Animal Education and Rescue Organization in Virginia. That group plans to release the kits back into the wild together.

I'm Gregory Stachel.

Denise Lavoie and Lea Skene reported this story for The Associated Press. Gregory Stachel adapted it for VOA Learning English.

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fox – n. a wild animal of the dog family, with red-brown fur, a pointed face and a thick heavy tail

mask – n. something that you wear over your face to hide it, or to frighten or entertain other people

stuffed animal – n. a toy in the shape of an animal, made of cloth and filled with a soft substance

orphan – n. a child whose parents are dead

cuddle up – v.(phrasal) to sit or lie very close to somebody/something

recognize – v. to know who somebody is or what something is when you see or hear them or it, because you have seen or heard them or it before