On several occasions, the Guardabosques or Rangers of the Primavera Forest had invited me to observe the liberation of rehabilitated mammals, reptiles and birds deep inside the woods, but never did I suspect that an event like this would one day take place in my own yard, turning me into the foster father of an enchanting baby fox.
The animals that the Rangers free all come from CIVS, the Centro para la Conservación e Investigación de la Vida Silvestre (Wildlife Rehabilitation Center), located in Guadalajara. Every time someone finds a crocodile, lynx, raccoon, hawk or whatever in their back yard (often hurt in some way), that creature ends up at CIVS, in the care of the director, Andrés González and his staff, who nurse the animal back to health and then work on finding the best possible home for their charge.
In some cases, the animals are given “survival training” and eventually let loose in the Primavera Forest or — as was the case of 500 huge but harmless Emperor Scorpions (Pandinus imperator) , found in an unclaimed box by Mexico City custom officials—the creatures find a home with a specialist who is familiar with their species.
Although my wife Susy and I are not zoologists, we have somehow become good friends, let us say, with a family of three gray foxes who come to visit us just about every evening to partake of a plate of fruit which Susy never fails to place on our porch, outside the door.
Foxes like fruit? You bet, and so far their favorite fruit of all is a nice ripe mango. By the time they are finished with one, there’s nothing left but one immaculately clean stone. Gray foxes are, in fact, omnivorous and we discovered they even like peanuts and have actually figured out how to open them, but let me get back to the story of Kari.
It started with a phone call from Karina Aguilar, Director of Fauna in the forest. “I have a little surprise for you,” said her message on our answering machine. “When can I bring it over?”
A few days later, Karina arrived at our house, which is situated just inside the northern border of the sprawling Primavera Forest, in the company of about twenty animal experts, including the head of CIVS himself, Andrés González. With much pomp and circumstances, they placed a small grey travel cage in our yard. Inside was a tiny, utterly captivating little grey fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus).
“This baby fox was found on the grounds of the Autonomous University of Guadalajara a few months ago,” they told us. “We hope that your family of foxes will adopt it.”
“What is this little fox’s name,” we asked Karina.
“It has no name. You can give it any name you like.”
“OK, we’ll call it Karinita,” I said and the name stuck (much to Karina’s delight, I think).
That night we placed the cage near our porch and, sure enough, at sunset along came the youngest member of “our” fox family.
It walked along nonchalantly until it was just a few meters from the cage. Suddenly, Karinita gave a little jump inside her cage. The approaching fox instantly froze, abruptly turned around and dashed out of the yard at full speed. That night, not a bit of the food we had put out was eaten and it was a big spread: papaya, mango, melon, peanuts and a raw egg.
To us it seemed the family of foxes was saying “Oops, sorry, we didn’t know we were invading somebody else’s turf.”
The next day, we let Karinita out of her cage, curious as to what she would do. Well, first she walked up to each of us, sniffed and licked our outstretched hands. “Looks like she doesn’t bite,” I commented. Then she began exploring everything around our house, slowly and with great interest. A couple of hours later, she had vanished. “Either she’s gone for good or she’ll come back to the cage for food,” we figured.
But we were wrong on both counts. That night, the plate of food in front of the open cage was untouched and the next day we saw no sign of Karinita until I walked over to the stone fence enclosing our property to answer a call of nature. I was doing just that when suddenly I heard a growl from inside the wall, which is composed of large volcanic rocks, neatly piled: a typical Mexican cerca. My eyes bulged. I had never heard the slightest peep out of any fox in all my life, so I wondered, could that possibly be Karinita or was it…something else?
One second later, a familiar face—with very sleepy eyes, peered at me from a hole in the fence and out popped Karinita, who walked right up to me and touched her wet nose to my hand. Well, we brought her food which she “devoured” in what we now considered “fox style.” That is, as far as I can see, no matter how hungry a fox is, it never gulps everything down, but instead picks up only one item at a time, walks a few meters away and eats it slowly and with great relish. Somehow foxes seem to turn every meal into an Italian wedding banquet, prolonging the pleasure of eating for as long as possible.
After eating, Karinita would run off at high speed, dashing this way and that. At one point, she raced round and round a tree, suddenly jumping high into the air in what I can only surmise was a leap of joy: free, free, free at last!
Weeks have passed. Kari still lives inside the stone fence and the family of three foxes eventually resumed their nightly visits to snack on our porch. Nearly every night we hear them “talking” to Kari near the stone wall but so far she hasn’t gone off to join them. Meanwhile, Kari’s universe expands as she explores more and more new territory and she continues to make appearances throughout the day, even though her species is supposed to be nocturnal. Her favorite game is to “hide” and wait for one of us to say “boo!” which sends her racing off at high speed to a new hiding place where she hopes we will repeat the same procedure (and I think she’d be delighted if we repeated it forever). She has recently shown enthusiasm for chasing a tennis ball, even though her mouth is still too small to pick it up.
I can’t say Kari is our pet because I’m not sure whether we have her or she has us. The good thing is that she is completely free to come and go as she likes. It is a unique and wonderful experience to have this beautiful creature as our neighbor.
If you find an exotic animal where it shouldn’t be, or mistreated by someone, you can call CIVS at 36 09 63 56 in Guadalajara, confident that they will help that creature find a good home.