Animal Diaries Archive

Bonding with the foxes

24 February 2006

Foxes are an extremely shy and timid animal. Here at the Zoo our two foxes Kit and Roxy are hand-fed; however, due to their shy nature there are only a couple of keepers in the whole Zoo that are lucky enough to work with these awesome little animals. It takes a very long time to bond with a fox and to gain their trust.

Over the past few months I have started bonding with our two foxes in the hope that one day they will become confident enough to come down during the daily fox demonstration and hand-feed for me. When learning to work with the foxes, it all begins in their night den. The foxes feel much more confident in their den and are more likely to approach someone new. Although winning over a fox is definitely a patience game, it is definitely very rewarding as well!

So far I have done a few demonstrations, some successful and some not so successful. But unfortunately that's the way it is when you're working with a wild animal. Our foxes are not trained animals and everything happens on their terms. If the foxes aren't feeling very confident and are a little too scared to come down to hand-feed during the demonstration they are not punished in any way; we simply feed them in their den at night where they feel much more comfortable.