I saw our fox a couple of times over the weekend. It’s still holding one front foot off the ground. Apparently whatever happened was serious, and it looks like it’s a permanent injury. I wish there was something we could do about it, but, of course, there isn’t. Nature will take its course. I have seen estimates of a fox’s average lifespan in the wild ranging from three to five years. This one is probably approaching three, based on our observations. I just hope life on the mountain is easy enough that it can live out a normal lifespan, whatever that is.
I wonder what happened to it. Simply running through the woods at night can be dangerous. I saw Zeke run into a tree the night he got loose and chased the fox. I imagine a fox is better at running at night than Zeke, but still. I suppose a dog or a coyote might have attacked her. I guess we’ll never know. And we may never know what happens to the fox. I guess after some time we will look at each other and ask when was the last time we saw it, and we won’t remember.
It’s always a heart-tugging thing to be able to recognize an individual because of an ongoing injury. Hard not to want to intervene in some way. A fellow blogger we know up in Oregon has written about a three-legged coyote he has seen around for a while. Makes me hopeful that animals can survive their injuries and keep going. I hope “your” fox fares well.
Her behavior has changed since her injury. Where she would watch us nonchalantly as long as we stayed on the deck, now she runs at the first sight. And where she would completely ignore Zeke’s barking, now she runs. She’s a much more cautious fox now.
I was walking in Brooklyn with my daughter and we came upon some baby birds on the sidewalk. They were still alive, but they clearly weren’t going to be for long. My daughter, becoming a true New Yorker I suppose, simply said “Don’t look at it. You can’t do anything about it,” and hurried me along.
Part of me understands that.
It’s so sad but so very true!