Red Fox and kit Ft Collins Colorado       click to enlarge

Relying on the kindness of strangers. That’s what this fox family does every day. This young mother and her family live in the middle of a densely populated suburban area filled with kids, dogs, passerby’s, cars, sidewalks, bicycles, everything thing that modern living brings to bear on our day-to-day lives.

Her den is less than five feet from a busy sidewalk that sees a constant parade of people walking by, mom’s pushing strollers, dog walkers, kids running by on their way to the park just across the street. It is also next to a small but vibrant wetland. It is here that she gets much of her food. That and the constant supply of dog food well-meaning folks leave at the den entrance.

She has three young ones at home and they spend as much time as they can now out in front of the den, the young playing and mom on constant guard for any danger. They don’t get much sun time though because as soon as mom spots someone coming down the sidewalk it’s back into the den until she sounds the all clear. When mom barks a short command the kids respond immediately and disappear into the den with lightning speed.

The kindness that mom depends on isn’t the food well-wishers leave at the front door, she really doesn’t need it, she can find more than enough food on her own, it’s the fact that she has been basically unmolested and able to rear three youngsters to young adulthood without much interference from the humans that live around her. The observers that keep an eye on her have kept the intrusions into the fox families life to a minimum and thankfully fate has spared the young ones from the constant traffic going by just feet from their playground.

Make no mistake, these are not pets, they are wild things, they just happened for one inexplicable reason or another, chosen to live among us. So far it has been a successful arrangement.