Photo: Wikipedia Creative Commons
Feral dogs & cats are a major problem for the conservation of biodiversity world-wide.
Both dogs & cats are the most abundant predators on earth, they compete with wildlife for resources, they harass & kill countless species of vertebrates many of them endangered and they transmit many diseases & parasites such as distemper, rabies, leptospirosis & toxoplasmosis (to mention just a few of them) to wildlife, livestock and humans.
Although the effect of dogs killing and fatally injuring foxes has been widely documented in red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) in many countries (USA, UK & Ukraine for example) these cases are not well documented in Latin American wildlife.
https://bvajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1136/inp.i707
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBIvpv0Jhsw&t=71s
https://www.mylondon.news/news/north-london-news/dangerously-out-control-dogs-spark-27677325
https://theanimalrescuesite.com/blogs/news/eam-ukraine-fox-yanchik/
Here is a 4-5 months old Grey fox (Urocyon cineroargenteus) that we knew by sightings that was part of a family of at least 4 members (adult female, probably the mother, the father and two cubs)
Photo: This is the adult female (probably Chincolito's mother) Copy Right: Manuel Weber @ 2025.
You can see that is no longer lactating so, the cubs were recently weaned (therefore they are 4-5 months old).
At the end of September, the vigilance personal at Ecosur-Campeche reported me that one of the foxes was seen without its tail. That sound the alarm to me and I started looking for them to observe the injured fox without any luck. On October the first, the gardener told me that he saw the little fox at close range and that the injury seems to be nasty and in bad shape (red, bloody and exposed he told me).
I decided to act, and we put three Tomahawk traps baited with bananas at around 8-30 9-30 am. At 2 pm I received a call that the tail-less fox had been trapped and we procced with the whole process of examining him (a little male we called Chincolito), prepared him for surgery and put him a shot of long-lasting, wide-ranging antibiotic.
The injury was indeed pretty nasty. It was clearly a tearing-tissue injury most likely caused by a large dog that managed to grab him by the tail and tearing his tail apart with the resulting characteristic nasty tissue-tearing and with massive necrosis and retraction of the skin that required amputating another vertebrae to be able to properly get healthy tissue and enough skin for suture.
The surgery went OK. The animal is indeed a 4-5 months old juvenile with most of its tail totally amputated. It weighted 1.2 kg (that is a more or less normal weight for its age and size) and was an otherwise healthy, beautiful male gray fox.
The decision to release him the same day was very difficult as I was pondering the benefits vs problems of it. I remembered a case of an Amur leopard at the London Zoo that was injured at birth by his first-time mother that was decided to be returned to her mother and she ended of killing him by asphyxia (resting on top of him) and other cases.
I decided to go ahead and release him because: 1) He was probably still being at least partially feed by his parents, 2) In my experience juvenile wildlife animals got depressed and stop feeding and drinking in captivity (even short time captivity) and, 3) The weather was more or less ok (27-28 C and no rain) to avoid an infection of the severed, surgically fixed tail.
So we released the fox cub around 5 pm when all of the anesthesia effect was gone and crossed the fingers for him. I started putting dishes with chopped fruit and chicken for him to eat. Don Joaquin and Don Manuel of the vigilance personnel observed the parents taking and eating the food and I just hoped that at least some of it will be carried away by them to feed the injured cub.
After a couple of days and nobody watching the tail-less cub, I begin to worry a lot for him and finally, yesterday Saturday 4th, I received a call around 7 pm by Don Manuel the vigilant at the entrance of Ecosur that the little tailless cub was walking around accompanied by the two adults (where is his brother/sister?). He looked apparently in good shape and was actually playing with one of the adults a little bit. Hurray!!!
I saw this beautiful double rainbow on Saturday on my way to Ecosur to check for the cub when I received the call by Don Manuel that he saw him and he was fine. Was this a sign of Pachamama telling me that the little Chincolito was fine? I don’t know. May be. I was so glad to receive that call and see this rainbow that day.
I was assited by Dr. Alejandro Hernandez (Post-doc Ecosur) and Dr. Rafael Reyna (who called me to tell me that the fox was in the tomahawk trap I set earlier). Dr. Novelo (from Veterinaria Novelo) helped me with the anesthetics dose (as he has done many times in the past for several wildlife cases around Campeche. Thanks Dr. Novelo!) Thanks to all!
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PD: Please, please sterilize your pets (dogs, cats and all) and support initiatives and laws for the humane letal control of feral dogs and cats in Mexico and in the world.
Por favor esterilicen a sus mascotas (perros, gatos y otros) y apoyen leyes e iniciativas para el control letal de perros y gatos ferales en México y en el mundo. El problema de sobrepoblación canina y felina es muy grave y los efectos (como este caso) suceden todo el tiempo, nadie los ve (yo les llamo invisibles y silenciosos) y son devastadores para la fauna silvestre).
