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A man in Richmond, Virginia was walking his dog when he found an abandoned fox cub, also called a ‘kit’ or a ‘pup,’ and he called the Richmond Wildlife Center to come rescue the orphaned baby fox. Then things got a little weird, depending on your perspective.
Once at the Richmond Wildlife Center, the orphaned fox pup needed to be fed. And in order to make the fox cub feel as comforted as possible, a zookeeper wore a ‘furry’ costume of a fox while feeding the adorable orphaned kit.
Footage of the feeding was shared on Threads by ABC and on YouTube by the AP, and it’s certainly cute to see an orphaned baby fox feeding but there are plenty of jokes in the comments questioning how the zookeeper was able to so quickly procure such a costume:
According to the founder of the Richmond Wildlife Center, the zookeeper fox costume was used in order to prevent the orphaned fox from imprinting on humans.
Red foxes imprint particularly early and according to LostRiverExotics/Google, they need to be released back into the wild between 4-6 weeks of age or they run the risk of imprinting on humans for the rest of their lives. So it is a very timely manner with the zookeeper fox costume, albeit an unorthodox and funny one.
For what it’s worth, there are actual domesticated foxes out there. Frankly, it’s a wonder that humans didn’t domesticate foxes thousands of years ago given how clever they are:
Would you want a red fox as a pet? It’s a no from me, for sure. The smell they put off is way too much.