Black Foxes live nearby

By Miwa Takahashi

Sept. 12, 2018

A black fox appeared at the parking area behind house 230 Fitzroy St. on Aug, 28.  It walked around and disappeared. Miwa Takahashi photo

It looked like a dog.

It scratched behind its ear using forefoot in the parking area behind a house on Fitzroy Street on Aug, 28.

It wasn’t a dog. It was a black fox.

The black fox is not rare in P.E.I., said Dwaine Oakley, an instructor in the Wildlife Conservation Technology program at Holland College.

“Because of the fox ranching industry through the 1900s, People raised foxes to sell their pelts. So people genetically bred them to be silver black versus red, and then, once they were not getting much money for fox pelts, many people just released the foxes.

So you had a larger influx of black recessive gene of red fox introduced to the wild population.”

The black fox is black because of melanism. Melanism is a development of the dark-colored pigment melanin in the skin or its appendages and is the opposite of albinism, all-white skin.  

There are people who have never seen a black fox, even if they have lived here for years.

Petal Mahon has been living here for eight years just behind the parking area where the black fox appeared.

 “I have never ever seen that, so I would like to see one. And also I would like to know where exactly they live.”

Oakley said the black foxes love open farm land, like open fields and they are quite adaptable to living in the town or cities. There are so many foxes are in Charlottetown and Stratford because people feed them.

Mahon said feeding animals has been a big problems lately.

“People shouldn’t feed animals because they should be left to find food their own, so that they could survive their own.”

If she finds a black fox, she will just looks at that, she said.

Oakley said if people feed animals it will lead to conflict with them and the chance to bite people, like children.

James Terry Hunt, who lived around Fitzroy Street for a year and a half, sometimes see the black foxes.

People shouldn’t feed animals, he said.

“It attracts animals. And the food we eat is not healthy for animals. Foxes are able to find a food on their own. So, they don’t need us.”

However, it is kind of tough to warn people against feeding, said Hunt.

“Because I don’t care too much if other people feed foxes, like I don’t want to tell someone to stop feeding them. But it is better not to feed them.”