I’m all for helping out wildlife, but I need to the see the science behind this odd decision to truly understand it. The Richmond Wildlife Center in Virginia is going the extra mile (or at least the extra costume change) to take care of the baby red foxes that were orphaned and are now under their care.
How so? By literally dressing up as foxes when they interact with the infants. A video posted by the wildlife center showed Melissa Stanley, the executive director of the center, wearing a fox mask that was even equipped with a mouth that moved as she spoke.
Stanley was also wearing rubber gloves as she fed the small red fox with a syringe, and guess what? The baby fox was laying atop a stuffed animal fox, so you’ve got to give the Richmond Wildlife Center credit for their efforts.
As to why they were going through all of the trouble, and dressing up like a human-sized fox, the caption with the footage posted to Facebook explained:
“It’s important to make sure that the orphans that are raised in captivity do not become imprinted upon or habituated to humans.
To prevent that, we minimize human sounds, create visual barriers, reduce handling, reduce multiple transfers amongst different facilities, and wear masks for the species.”
Doing all of that apparently increases the likelihood that the baby fox can one day be released back out into the wild. If that’s the case, I guess I’ll retract my skepticism and simply say more power to the Richmond Wildlife Center.
It’s an interesting way to go about things, don’t get me wrong. But at the same time, could it not make baby foxes get an unrealistic expectation of how big other foxes will be out in the wild? Since I don’t know enough about it all to make a counter argument, I’ll withhold my other thoughts on the matter and just direct you to the video that the Richmond Wildlife Center posted:
