THE IMAGE. Near Toulouse. She comes face to face with a fox… quietly installed on her terrace
By David Saint-Sernin
Published on
updated on 15 Dec 22 at 18:12
She only had a few seconds to capture the scene. And four days after his astonishing encounter, Emilie Olives, a resident of Grenade-sur-Garonnenorth of Toulouse, still finds it hard to believe.
She came home from work
Monday, December 12, 2022, when she came home from work and is in her house, she came face to face with a… fox, who walked quietly on his terrace.
“With my husband, we run the Olives-Sentenac drugstore in the center of the village and that day, we had just come back from work. It was 8 p.m. when I wanted to see through our bay window and it was when I was about to go outside that I saw a shadow on our terrace. Immediately, I saw that it was a fox. I was 40 centimeters from him. He was a little startled, but he didn’t run away immediately. He went around the shelter we have on our terrace three times, then he left. It was very surprising and a bit incomprehensible, especially since the lights were on in our house”.
“No reason to find him there”
If it is not rare to cross furtively a fox on the edge of a road, to see the animal appearing at the inhabitant, it is almost unheard of. In the memory of a resident of Grenade-sur-Garonne, such an event had never happened.
“We live in a residential area, I don’t have a chicken, my neighbors don’t have any more than we do. Even though we have a field and a grove behind the house, there was no reason for this fox to enter our fenced yard. There was no food to be found, our garbage cans were empty…”, seeks Elodie who cannot find an explanation for this surprisingly fortuitous encounter.
Since then, the young woman admits that she is not reassured: “It was impressive to see him so close. Every evening, I watch a little when I get home…”
“Don’t feed them”
Meeting a fox in town is rare, but it does happen.
Questioned by our colleagues of News Paris in December 2021, Xavier Japiot, professional naturalist and in charge of biodiversity studies for the City of Parisexplained the attitude to adopt when meeting a fox:
“To have this chance, you have to go for a walk very early or very late. If you walk your dog, there is no danger: foxes will flee, whatever the breed. No contact has ever been observed. Do not try to establish a bond with them, do not give them food for example, because they would lose the fear of the human and might be tempted to bite. Keep your distance, enjoy this encounter but don’t touch it.
“It’s not an inconvenience”
If the fox does not have a very good reputation (it remains the eternal eater of hens) it is however not a pity. It is even useful for humans since at the end of the food chain, it eats nearly 6 to 10,000 rodents per year.
“Animals that cause Lyme disease, for example. So yes, it can also be an “accidental host” and transmit the disease to humans, but that’s out of all proportion to what it brings us. When we say that we must eliminate the foxes, we reverse the roles! Let’s rehabilitate them”, even explained Xavier Japiot in this same interview.
As a reminder, foxes are omnivores. They eat live and dead animals. In good weather, they feed on rodents and small chicks. In the fall, they will eat more dried fruits and seeds. A fox can live up to 12 years if all goes well.
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