The elemental strangeness of foxes | Hacker News Reader

The elemental strangeness of foxes

plough.com

63 pointsswibbler28 comments

I’ve always liked foxes. I was an avid coyote hunter for years and used to call foxes in all the time. They’re hilarious because when they come smoking in for the kill and realize it’s a trap they try to act nonchalant and just veer off like “Oh, yeah, I wasn’t actually falling for that bro.” I had a big red Fox who lived in the woods next to my friend’s farm and he’d always come out at night when he heard me calling and just hang out near me, he knew I was there and just liked to come out and goof off. Sometimes he’d just hop up on a hay bale next to me, wrap his tail over his nose and go to sleep like it was nothing. Funny little guys, lots of personality. But fragile too, they have a very short lifespan in the wild.

yeah they're nasty pieces of work sometimes as well. They slaughter wildly in chicken coop's. they often kill and eat just the tail and tongue of lambs in sheeping communities.

but I can't help but love how sleek and beautiful they are, the noises they make and their playful natures.

Apparently the killing of multiple chickens in a coop is not arbitrary / vicious. Because food is scarce in the wild, if given the opportunity they will kill as many as possible and then bury them in caches so they have food for several days. Unfortunately (for them) when they kill multiple chickens in a coop they get interrupted by the owner so can't return - so it ends up looking like pointless cruelty.

I wonder if it doesn't serve them in another way, namely to deny competitors (especially other foxes) a ready meal. It might also be so that they can eat one chicken in peace and not get poked by the others! But yes, like orcas clearly playing with living, in-pain seals, or any number of other phenomena, nature can be quite cruel.

I wonder if its simply a case of "eyes bigger than the stomach". The fox gets over excited with a coop full of chicken and goes overboard as there's so much food. Similar to buying too much food or snacks when shopping hungry.

Looks like that (sort of) plays a part.

https://www.wildlifeonline.me.uk/questions/answer/do-foxes-k...

Note that I have seen a chicken coop devasted by a dog in exactly the same way. It was not a pretty sight.

That's because most chicken coops are notorious by its bad design. We shouldn't blame the fox for that. In some cases chicken would survive more time if left roost out of the cop. The weak point is the nest.

Not much people are grateful for all the rats and mice wiped for free by the foxes in any case. We maybe should start thinking more about it.

It’s not like a coop is a natural prey situation. You have a large number of prey captive in a small space from which they can’t escape. Foxes don’t really have a natural behavioral pattern for this. I’m not surprised if they may overreact.

I love foxes too.

Here are a couple of books on them I liked:

"The Sprite: The Story of a Red Fox" https://www.amazon.com/Sprite-Story-Red-Fox/dp/B001JL4JWY

"Red fox: The Catlike Canine" https://www.amazon.com/Red-fox-Catlike-Canine-Smithsonian/dp...

I enjoy watching SaveAFox on youtube. Personality wise they overlap with cats and dogs in some ways, but they definitely have their own fox traits.

Cat software running on dog hardware

Foxes are amazing animals. The disrespect they get for being pests and vermin is wrong. We destroyed their habitat. And I disagree with the Russian fox domestic program.

Hunting them for sport is wrong and unfair although I would turn my head if it was seasonal and usage of inhumane methods were banned.

As much I would love to own a fox which is legal I couldn't bare taking something away from wild nature. We struggle to look after Dogs and Cats let alone Rabbits. We don't deserve foxes as pets.

I knew of someone who had pet foxes.

Yeah, apparently they can be domesticated relatively easily, at least one generation at a time. My understanding is that the process has to be repeated with their offspring, so they aren't truly a domesticated animal (yet).

At least some sources say they make good pets... but probably not for people who already have house rabbits, I imagine.

Just because they could doesn't mean we should.

Foxes need a lot of space they are not a dog nor a cat. They can't cope and become over stressed to small places for one of the matters. Just as rabbit in cages.

> Yeah, apparently they can be domesticated relatively easily, at least one generation at a time.

That's by definition not domesticated but tame.

Wild: an animal in a state of nature

Tame: offspring of a wild animal (or a few generations removed), used to humans but but with mostly wild instincts.

Domesticated: The result of a human breeding program on tame animals, to produce animals with behaviours more compatible with people as pet or livestock.

Feral: An animal with domesticated habits, or a few generations removed, gone rogue. Often does not want humans near it due to not being around them in early childhood.

There are domestic foxes that have been bred over the past 50+ years in Russia as part of an experiment. Super interesting to read about, too bad they're not legal in my state as they're selling some to help raise funds to keep the program going.

Read this [0] back in 2018 about it. Super interesting, and I've been following them for a bit now.

[0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31374512-how-to-tame-a-f...

I was up three and now I'm down to -1, what the hell.

If your downvoting me because I am against domestician, the Russian silver fox project is so very cruel. To the point they run fox mills and throw out the ones who have bad temperament. Not only that they are then sold on for fur profiteering.

If your downvoting me because of hunting: No animal should be hunted but at the same time The only way around that is to introduce seasons like deer.

I disagree with the downvotes I received and as someone who donates money to fox projects, willing to sab to stop hunting. Great animals but the are not pets!

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/famous-fox-domest...

Let downvotes do not discourage you. HN is about intellectual discussion, but ufortunately, sometimes, even very insightful comments can rub some people wrong way.

I live in Washington, DC, a bit more than 3 miles from the White House. There are fox in the parts of Rock Creek Park next to our neighborhood, and sometimes in the streets or our yard. I can't give you an exact account of their diet, but one once left a rat in our yard for me to dispose of. One night I saw two stalking a cat--I have to think it would have been a lot of work for the trouble.

Relevant user name, I like foxes. Fennec and grey foxes in particular, but nothing wrong with the standard red fox. They have interesting personalities it seems. Unfortunate they have a bad reputation in farming, I do not think they are nasty or cruel, merely wild. Chicken coops and herd animals closed in a tight area is not natural.

This guy has watched a lot of studio ghibli movies, it's written in a very heavily romanticized manner with a great deal of anthropomorphism thrown in.

Foxes make a racket at night. But they probably keep the rats down so that's a good thing. They also kill cats which doesn't really bother me.

Yes, yes, but what does the fox SAY?

I'll listen out of my window tonight and tell you.

Try asking your Google assistant this question.

>Even as I wanted to avoid it biting me, I wanted to feel its teeth. I wanted to be rejected by the wild. [. . .] For the blood it would draw from my hand to be evidence of the permanent barrier of strangeness, of human and animal, the line between fiction and reality, that existed between the two of us. I wanted to know a fox, and at the same time, to know that I could never know him. [. . .] The pain of being bitten and the joy of possibly knowing what it feels like to be bitten by a fox. Not only to see one, but to be marked by one.

Uh, yeah...

I’m pretty sure the fox took one look at the author and thought, “There’s no way in hell I’d bite that tripping hippie. Yuck.”

Reply on news.ycombinator.com