An un-nerving encounter with urban wildlife

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Nine hours ago, since I was up and about, at a time one could refer to as either “way late last night” or “real early this morning”, and alone for the evening and a bit bored, I did something I do occasionally: hopped on a late-night MUNI bus and rode out to Ocean Beach.

The idea was to find the remains of a bonfire with enough wood left to stir up and start it blazing again, and kick back for an hour or so: I had a couple of pastrami sandwiches, a pear, and a jar of iced tea, and figured I’d enjoy a little nite-owl picnic, smoke a few cigarettes, and dig the boom and hiss of the night-tide ocean until sun-up.

I got out where the fire pits are and found a suitably abandoned but viable conflagration that was far enough from the night’s other stragglers on the strand, threw some sticks and cardboard on to get it re-ablaze, and sat down to dig in. However, I was almost instantly interrupted by a vulpine interloper. Namely, the fox who had just suddenly materialized (or at least it seemed to, anyway), about a dozen feet from myself anc my reclaimed bonfire, with its attention focussed sharply on me.

He was a pretty big one too – for just a second I thought he was a runty coyote. But the bushy tail, thick coat, and generally slinky demeanor were unmistakable.

I reacted like the city boy that the past decades have made me into – I hollered “Scram, ya varmint!” The weird part was that he didn’t take off in a panic like I expected – he backed away a few feet but still kept staring at me and my pastrami sandwich. I yelled a couple more times and the damn fox still didn’t run away So I picked up a toy shovel the previous users of the firepit had left behind, and slung several loads of sand at the encroaching canid. His boldness bordered on aggression, and I immediately flashed on the word “rabid!” – foxes are usually very man-shy, and isn’t this sort of out-of-character behaviour in a wild animal generally considered a red-flag warning of rabies? Or maybe he’d previously encountered some overly-urbanized fools who’d thought it would be cool to feed him, and thus lost his natural fear of humans. I don’t know for sure, but I wasn’t about to take any chances. So I hollered “Geddouddahere, gawddammit!” at him once more, and then when he didn’t run away down the beach I bailed instead myself, caught a bus back downtown and went home. Been thinking about it on and off for the last several hours.

Well, that’s my mundane and pointless moment that I had to share – I suppose it was that, anyway, although it was disconcerting enough as far as I was concerned

2

Rabies seems very unlikely. Rabies is also known as hydrophobia- fear of water. Rabid animals would not be hanging out at a beach, I dare say.

Wild animals can become incredibly bold after having been fed by humans a few times.

3

Actually, the “hydrophobia” reference is to one symptom, the inability to swallow fluids properly, leading to shunning fluids.

The fox could have been rabid, or become unnaturally bold about humans because it’s been fed often by them, or perhaps it was so hungry that it dared make a try for your sandwich. Unfortunately it’s hard to tell which.

4

I vote for this as most likely. Sounds like a perfect environment for an animal to be fed to the point of losing it’s natural fear.

Years ago, when I was hiking Half Dome for the first time, I took a short food break and wound up with a chipmunk sitting on my knee. :slight_smile:

5

You would be surprised what a wild animal will do when it’s hungry and food is oh so close, yet so far.

6

I’m voting for the “fed by people” theory, myself.

Setting, time, behavior…

Probably was used to scavenging bonfire sites, and being fed by, or filching from, the occasional stray drunk. Having dealt with urban wildlife more than a few times, I find they can be shockingly bold, once they’ve decided humans are a food source.

7

Easy test, throw a bit of food and see. Fox are fun. We feed them here on the mountain a lot. Also have a CCW so I do not end up bare legged and defenseless when wild things come calling. :wink:

8

I’ll agree with others that it was probably that last. Foxes can sometimes habituate to humans nearly as much as raccoons and rather more than, say, opossums ( who will loosely ignore you, but rarely actually beg for food ). We had a pair of gray foxes out at my job site one year ( urban, but near semi-wild marsh/creekside and very locally underpopulated as it is in a light industrial zone ) and though we didn’t feed them, they were fairly tolerant and would let you get within about 10 yards without twitching a whisker. If given the opportunity, they’d dumpster dive.

I wouldn’t be concerned unless it were actually acting aggressive or otherwise manifesting bizarre behavior.

That said, in Europe at least they are the most common wild transmitter of rabies, so a modicum of caution is reasonable. In the U.S.they are a less dominant carrier, but still worth a little precaution.

9

Foxes? I thought foxes hung out at the Statue of Liberty…

10

As I mentioned over on the GQ thread, I usually see at least one fox every night in my neighbourhood when I’m cycling home. Some run off, some don’t. Some will stand their ground even in broad daylight. I think they’re cool, but then we don’t have rabies here in the UK.

11

We have foxes in my neighborhood that are just so used to humans thay can’t be bothered to run. This is in well populated Northern Virgiinia. Besides, they know they can outrun anything that want to if necessary. More than once I’ve been out walking my dog (a big dog too) and come across a fox that just can’t be bothered to move more than 50 feet or so beyond us. Drives my dog crazy. Deer can be like that too.

12

:smiley: You are a wild and crazy guy!

13

Once in college I was staggering home from a dorm party where I had drank way too much. While lurching down a wooded path between buildings, I spied an animal on the middle of the trail. “Kitty!” I said, and walked over and bent down to pet it. While I scratched it on the head, my double vision synchronized and I noticed this kitty had a black mask, a big bushy striped tail, and was at least two sizes too large than it should be. And it was sitting up on two legs.

I stood back up, said with infallible drunken logic “Hey…you’re not a kitty.” We stood there looking at each other for a few seconds, and then it got down on all fours and shambled into the bushes, giving me a sidelong glance as it disappeared.

I imagine it was one hell of a WTF moment for that raccoon.

14

Ah…the ones that have to go back to their lair for their birth-control devices?

15

We had a fox in our neighborhood that went for a walk down the sidewalk next to our house, fairly uninterested in the people nearby, who were giving it a wide berth out of caution or just giving it some space. When one woman in her car (I have no idea WTF she was thinking) tried to coax it to come to her, it took off.

A couple other foxes seemed not too disturbed that humans were around, but preferred to be at least 5 yards distance from any of them.

The rabbits around here are nearly fearless. You pretty much have to stomp after them, throw rocks, or get within 5 feet before they bother moving. They’ve pretty much learned that humans are no big deal.

16

Huh, a rational post from someone that has obviously been watching Fox. A first for the board.

17

It was the pastrami. Pastrami has mysterious powers.

Symptoms of rabies include staggering, drooling, erractic behavior, hyper-sensitivity to light, noise or touch, lethargy, partial paralysis & aggression. Rabies is a viral disease which attacks the central nervous system. Animals with rabies look & act like they have a brain malfunction (which, in a way, they do.)

Which is not to say you should have fed or approached the fox. But it sounds like the fox was no danger to anything but your sandwich.

18

Here’s a tip: city boys don’t use the word “varmint.” You would say “eek! A wild animal!” Or since you’re in San Francisco, maybe you could say “Oh! A fox that is not shackled by human oppression! I am terribly sorry for intruding on your territory, I will leave immediately.”

19

I think it was kinda rude that the OP failed to offer Brere Fox a bite of sammich. He did ask politely and all…

20

I’ve never seen foxes at the beach, but they’re fairly common visitors when I’m camping in the desert. Usually they’re pretty skittish–a yell and a rock thrown in their general direction is enough to send them packing.

Racoons, though, are a different story. They’re the worst kind of camp pests that I’ve run into. Those guys are fearless sometimes, they’ll hiss at you loud enough to make you retreat into the safety of your vehicle. I used to sleep in the bed of my pickup and they’d jump up on the tailgate in the middle of the night. Talk about a rude awakening.