Speaking of Wildlife
Cinder the Grey Fox
—by Jamie Proctor
Welcome to the sixteenth column describing the animals of Speaking of Wildlife: Ontario animals that can’t be released back into the wilderness of Ontario due to injuries or habituation to humans. Today we’ll be examining one of our more arthritic residents: Cinder, the grey fox.
The grey fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) is easily contrasted against the more well-known and extremely-distantly-related red fox (Vulpes vulpes): its snout and legs are shorter; its tail bears a black stripe that turns into a black tail-tip (rather than the red fox’s white tail-tip); and its forelimbs lack the red fox’s black ‘socks’ but DO have pronouncedly long, hooked claws (visible in its tracks, and often confused with cat prints).
It puts these to a unique use: it’s one of the two living canids adapted to climbing trees (the other is the raccoon dog), to the point of being able to scamper straight up a branchless vertical trunk; capably leaping branch-to-branch; and being willing to make dens in hollow trunks in addition to more typical locations like rock piles, burrows, or logs.
These arboreal habits make the grey fox fond of deciduous forests, brush environments, and the edges of human settlements; open spaces are less friendly to a small fox that often needs to climb a tree in a hurry to get away from larger predators. This is particularly the case with regards to coyotes, who are small enough to treat grey foxes as competitors, big enough to easily harm or kill them, and are now widespread thanks to settler extirpation of the grey wolf turning them into cross-continental ecological manspreaders.
Despite these difficulties, on a continental scale the grey fox remains scarcely rare: they can be found in large numbers stretching from one coast of the United States to the other (though not in the Rockies) and as deep into South America as Colombia. However, in Canada in general and Ontario in particular they are considered Threatened for good reason: they are found only on Pelee Island, around the southern edge of the Ontario/Manitoba border, and sometimes near the international border by Niagara.
Archaeological evidence suggests the grey fox was once historically common in southern Ontario prior to the arrival of European settlers, although not necessarily farther beyond that, which may suggest a relative intolerance of extreme winter conditions. At this point the principal barriers to its return may be having only a small local ‘seed’ population to grow from and the difficulty of its American relatives spreading north through the reduced levels of tree cover present in Ontario’s extreme south.
Human impact has been somewhat less vigorously psychopathic towards them than it has many other predators: they’ve been trapped historically across much of their range, but their pelts aren’t pricy enough to drive a true capitalist feeding frenzy (not that this prevents them being snared inadvertently as bycatch) and unlike the red fox they aren’t notorious culprits in the deaths of animal livestock.
In fact, if a grey fox isn’t eating absolute scads of small rodents (something most humans are very much in favour of), it’s eating rabbits, and if it isn’t eating either of THOSE it’s eating a large quantity of insects, and regardless of all of that it’s definitely eating a lot more vegetable matter than you think it is, particularly fruit. Springtime especially is a fruit bonanza for grey foxes.
Cinder was born into captivity in the United States in 2011 and came to Canada shortly thereafter to the then-Muskoka Wildlife Center, where she became an ambassador for species at risk. There, she formed a relationship of mutual trust and general fondness with my now-boss, Krystal. Shortly thereafter, Krystal went away to university and upon her return discovered that Cinder now regarded her with regal and strident distaste. Friendship is funny that way.
Thirteen years into a life that’s expected to last ‘up to twelve years in captivity’ Cinder’s opinions haven’t slowed down, even if her arthritis has prevented her running and climbing from being the same.
In an effort to respect her wishes and promote a peaceful existence, Krystal calls upon Cinder’s favourite person (former staff, Laura) to administer her monthly arthritis injections. After the passing of her comparably-elderly neighbour Fenn (who was our dark grey red fox, not to be confused with Cinder, who is our reddish grey fox), Cinder holds the trophy for being the very most Little Old Lady of the entire centre.
Cinder is almost always the very first job on my shift. I unlock the building and get my boots on and start setting up her morning medications right away, served inside a bit of meat or (very often) a delicious crunchy quail head.
I then place this bribe in a little metal bowl and bring it outdoors and into her enclosure while softly calling her by the nickname I’ve created just for her—“Cindy Mindy Yoo Hoo”—to find wherever she’s sleeping and put her med-filled snack by her, usually while she snorts and grumbles at me to go to hell and let her nap.
Despite her mild protest, she’ll devour the meat as I walk away. Later in the day as I feed the rest of the outdoor residents, I sometimes glimpse her as she shifts from shelter to shelter in her enclosure, forever in search of the perfect combination of sun and shade, like a little senior citizen lizard in a very comfortable seniors residence.
