It’s even more impressive when you consider she was rubbing her shoulder on the ground the entire 2,700 miles trying to get the transponder to come off.
I couldn't find that info anywhere in the text so I assume it's a remark trying to point out a problematic animal-abuse like aspect of this research. Which I do not see
Surely you mean that she checked several social media feeds on the smartphone she was outfitted with every half mile. And that at least five ad companies and twenty trackers followed her journey, none of which correctly deduced that she was a fox.
It's true what they say then. On the internet, nobody knows you're a fox.
Surely they checked to see how tolerant the fox was before blindly letting it go