Fox Rescue

Rescuing animals can often be stressful and emotional and all too often with wild animals, rescuing means making the decision to end suffering by ending a life, yesterday we had to make such a decision.

We took a call regarding an injured fox who had been dragging his rear legs, we loaded our rescue kit and headed off. We managed to catch the injured fox who was this year’s cub, he’d probably only recently left his mother. If you can catch an adult fox with ease, there are usually major issues and so he was off straight to the vets.

He was gassed down, examined and X-rayed. The extent of his injuries made our decision to end his life, before he was taken off anesthetic. One x-ray revealed a spinal injury, a further x-ray confirmed he had an old injury from a dislocated leg. There were also wounds and a large abscess aligned with the spinal injury.

Although he has now passed, we consider we have rescued him, we have spared him a certain slow death with pain and starvation. Whilst we are all volunteers, veterinary treatment especially when x-rays are required comes at a high cost to the charity, we could not do this without the public’s generosity.