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If a red fox tunnels under suburban toolsheds or burrows beneath greens on nearby golf courses, no one can guarantee it a long, healthy life by hiring a trapper to move it to a nearby woodlot or even a rural wetland.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
That\u2019s what researcher David Drake concluded during his recent talk at the annual meeting of Wisconsin\u2019s Wildlife Society. Drake, a professor at UW-Madison, gave his talk a blunt title in the conference\u2019s three-day seminar schedule: \u201cUrban red fox translocation leads to dispersal and low survival.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
As UW-Madison researchers repeatedly confirmed over the past 20 years, red foxes wreck stuff when living among humans. And though they\u2019re undoubtedly cute when young and pretty when mature, mitigating their damage isn\u2019t easy, and moving them elsewhere isn\u2019t necessarily humane. Despite everyone\u2019s best intentions, they often soon die one way or another.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Drake reviewed what happened to eight young Madison-area red foxes that researchers fitted with GPS-transmitting collars before releasing them within a few miles of their former homes. Some were turned loose in a park on Madison\u2019s east side, and the others at a golf course or a conservation park on the city\u2019s southeast side.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Once released, the young foxes\u2014six males and two females\u2014fled quickly north and east toward less developed habitats, even though they\u2019d been born in fairly urban settings. The distances they moved ranged from 2 to 53 miles. In the months that followed, only one of the eight \u201ctranslocated\u201d foxes was verified alive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Three were road-killed fairly quickly. The first one got Goodyeared two days after its release, while another got Firestoned 22 days later, and the third got Michelined 130 days later.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A fourth fox wandered into a hangar at the Dane County Regional Airport and had to be shot to ensure it didn\u2019t cross a runway and endanger aircraft. A fifth fox died, but the researchers couldn\u2019t verify what killed it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Researchers couldn\u2019t monitor two of the foxes because their tracking collars quit functioning upon their release, despite the units being tested and verified shortly before.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
If nothing else, the study provided more data for the law of unintended consequences. Most folks don\u2019t want to kill or harm wildlife, even when the prettiest critters eat flowers, devour gardens, foul lawns, or collapse walkways. Likewise, everyone wants to rescue \u201cabandoned\u201d cubs, fawns, and fledglings, and they\u2019re all concerned by drooling deer and mangy coyotes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
But more folks might consider accepting the word and experience of biologists or ornithologists when told that quick death is often the most merciful way to mitigate damage. Academicians even have a name for what happens when good intentions cause unintended harm: pathological altruism. You\u2019ll even find books about it, with subtitles like \u201cThe Hidden Agendas of Needy Helpers\u201d and \u201cWhy Being Too Nice Can Hurt You and Everyone Around You.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Meanwhile, professors like Drake, his colleague Tim Van Deelen, and their many UW-Madison graduate and Ph.D. researchers keep studying and critiquing their findings. Therefore, they anticipate questions like, \u201cWhy not release troublesome foxes back into the urban or suburban neighborhood they came from?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Well, because the homeowners or business owners who complained didn\u2019t want them back in the \u2019hood. Further, no university or agency has reform schools for wildlife. They can\u2019t be taught how to live among city folk and leave their stuff alone. Besides, even though most folks don\u2019t want to euthanize furry or feathery nuisances themselves, they\u2019ll stay quiet if someone does it for them.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
But even when red foxes settle in quiet city parks, green spaces, and backyard woodlots, they still face long odds. Yes, even if they\u2019re adults that look both ways before crossing roads. And yes, Drake and his students have observed that behavior in urban foxes. Maybe those adult foxes grew up in densely developed neighborhoods with narrow roads, speed bumps, and low speed limits. They survived their youths despite behaving like easily distracted 16-year-old drivers who look too quickly and brake too slowly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Meanwhile, foxes living on a city\u2019s outskirts with more space between homes often die at higher rates beneath bumpers and Bridgestones. Those areas typically have wider streets and boulevards with higher speed limits, as well as more drivers operating at highly varying speeds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Still others ask why someone can\u2019t release problem foxes far outside town into a big woods or wetland. Well, because many rural areas across America are flush with coyotes, and, as Van Deelen and his research students verified, coyotes kill or persecute foxes infringing on their turf.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cCoyotes push foxes up into culverts and farmsteads and other things associated with roads, so they still have high road mortality,” Van Deelen said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Plus, no matter where a typical 10- to 12-pound red fox lives in town, it eventually encounters 50- or 100-pound pet dogs that break leashes or cheap chains. Likewise, urban foxes are more likely to contract mange and highly pathogenic avian influenza than their rural counterparts. In other words, the \u201cmean streets\u201d of our nation\u2019s biggest cities aren\u2019t any nicer to wildlife than to people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Studies like Drake\u2019s also help wildlife rehabilitators decide how best to spend their time, expertise, and limited resources. Most wildlife rehab facilities struggle to stay in business, given that birds and wildlife don’t carry cash, insurance, or credit cards.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Therefore, rehabilitators can\u2019t treat every bird, mammal, reptile, or amphibian that kind-hearted people bring in. Should they spend time and money on one critter with little hope of long-term survival when research and experience suggest they spend their resources elsewhere? Most people are just fine letting others make those calls, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n