VEGETARIAN FOX? by Patrick A. Nootton 
     
    
   
   
    
     Down at our home in Sharam Point, near Gladstone on the shores of the 
     
     Murray Harbour, we have watched with interest over recent years the annual 
     
     arrival of a pair of foxes to the same lair in a pile of off-cut wood only feet 
     
     from our dirt road. v 
     
    

    
     Each year we have enjoyed seeing 
     
     a pair or sometimes three kits 
     
     playing in that area oblivious of our 
     
     gaze as we pass to and fro in our 
     
     vehicles. This year has been no 
     
     exception with the initial sighting 
     
     of three kits which was reduced to 
     
     two as time went on. We have seen two 
     
     more frequently than in previous 
     
     years, often just running alongside 
     
     the wheels of our cars or playing 
     
     together unconcerned by our presence. 
     
     One a light sandy colour; the other a 
     
     brown grey. 
     
    

    
     Then one night, we were awakened by a cry that was almost continuous. Not 
     
     a bark but a long drawn out howl, just outside the windows of our house and 
     
     only feet from the basement garage door where our two cats often sleep. These 
     
     frequent, nightly visits became a regular feature but what was quite 
     
     extraordinary was that the time quite often was exactly 2:30 a.m. 0n moonlit 
     
     nights we clearly discerned the fox moving stealthily from the place to place 
     
     on our lawn, while emitting this rather eerie and high pitched howl. Was it the 
     
     vixen bemoaning the loss of a kit or was it some other factor such as hunger or 
     
     sickness which caused the sound to be continued long after the fox had moved 
     
     away along the beach. He gained the impression that this vixen, or possibly the 
     
     dog-fox, was accompanied by the kits as we sometimes heard a snarling noise as 
     
     if two animals were snapping at each other. 
     
    

    
     Possibly due to our sleeping through the sound, we have not heard these 
     
     calls recently. Since these night time encounters, we have seen more of the 
     
     sandy coloured cub, now almost full grown, as he slips across the road or runs 
     
     from one place to another. 
     
    

    
     The most unexpected encounter was Sunday morning, July 15th, when I went 
     
     to feed the chickens in the small barn close to part of the vegetable and fruit 
     
     gardens where we grow asparagus and strawberries. There, calmly moving from 
     
     plant to plant, was this sandy coloured fox with his white tipped brush, eating 
     
     our strawberries, unconcerned by my presence! 
     
    

    
     After I had fed the chickens (but not opened the trap door to their 
     
     outside run), I hurried back to our house. On the way back, I called Ann and 
     
     our visitors, two English girls from Bath. He returned to find the sandy kit 
     
     still thoroughly enjoying the fruit, only raising its head and pricking its 
     
     ears occasionally to see what we were doing. 
     
    

    
     We do not have very high fencing around the poultry yard but on only one 
     
     occasion, two years ago, did we lose a chicken to a fox when it got on the 
     
     wrong side of the wire. Either the foxes have been very law abiding to date or 
     
     we have been very fortunate in that they have not yet turned their attention to 
     
     a chicken rather than strawberry menu. 
     
    

    
     Has anyone else encountered similar experiences with P.E.I foxes? If so, I 
     
     would appreciate a call.