TulsaPets Magazine May 2021

May/June 2021 • TulsaPets 31 Infant fox with eyes shut and the hallmark white tail tip P hoto by Kim Doner Baby fox face Photo by Kathy Locker mind your kitchen countertops are (oh, my, is that right?) about 3 feet high. Prepare for a constant “stream” of homemade gifts from an indoor fox, on your pillow, your recliner, your sink. … You’ve been claimed. Ack. And if you happen to have a gray fox, they have SUPER claws on their hind legs that help them climb trees; sometimes they even sleep there. It’s like they’re half canine, half feline and for more reasons than that. Check out their eyes. Their pupils are slits. (Hello, fellow nerds! Cool facts alert!) Animals with slitted pupils (cats, goats and foxes) traditionally get a bad rap as far as folklore, devilry and scary tales go. An evolutionary explanation fits the “why” behind this development. Goats hang together in a “trip” and are fairly short for hoofed ani- mals. Their pupils are horizontal so they are able to continue grazing and still control the amount of light admitted into their sights. But what about when they raise their heads? There’s an arc to that movement, but their pupils stay horizontal because their eyes rotate to maintain periph- eral vision no matter what. Weird, right? Cats and foxes, on the other hand, have vertical slits to their pupils since they hunt at night and do so independently. Wolves hunt in packs and don’t need this feature; their pupils are round. The slits also give depth perception and accuracy for pouncing, which is both a cat-n-fox style of predation. Knowing the solitude of a normal fox will help this rehabber raise the little guy she has, along with recorded fox calls, a secure pen full of hiding places (for stashing food as well as self), space away from human voices and other pet sounds, and a proper diet. The plan is for a gradual weaning by introducing dead prey (no, the rehabber has no plans to pre-chew it. As much as she loves critters, she does have her limits): frozen rodents of all kinds, road kill, beetles, grass- hoppers, crickets, slugs, snails, spiders, earthworms (they are diggers, too), snakes, lizards and other infant mammals (sorry, but it’s true)— if they’d only left the chickens alone! But alas, they like chicken as much as we do. So our committed rehabber has plans for the little guy’s release on a large, undeveloped acreage as far from people as possible after preparing him for life in the wild. She hopes he survives, grows, finds a “foxy lady” and furthers the species. Perhaps, before his release, he’ll share the answer to that question that keeps humming through our heads. … What DOES the fox say?