The Freeway Fox Family Inhabits Some New Digs

A mother fox was reunited with her pups Monday at the Los Angeles Zoo, and curators said the family was eating well and settling down under the care of the zoo’s veterinary staff.

The young foxes and the mother were separated for several days because the female had been scared away by trappers who wanted to move them out of their den alongside a new stretch of the Costa Mesa Freeway.

“When the mother was put in the (zoo) enclosure, the pups followed her and crawled all over her. They were in a big pile, with the mama and the pups all around her,” said Lora LaMarca, a zoo spokeswoman.

The California Department of Fish and Game trapped the family of red foxes because the 1.1-mile freeway extension opens today, and the public demanded that the agency move the animals to safety.

Apparently healthy, the mom her brood are being held in a 4-by-12-foot enclosure in the zoo’s health center, where they will undergo 30 days of routine quarantine, LaMarca said.

“We will put them through a variety of tests, such as salmonella and parasites. We may have to do blood chemistry work, too, if we come up with something,” she said. “We don’t want them to bring in anything that will harm other animals in our collection.”

The foxes also need a period of adjustment to adapt to new surroundings, LaMarca said. After that, they will be released in the North American mammal-display area with the zoo’s two other foxes. Some of the foxes eventually will be moved to the Orange County Zoo.

On Monday, the mom and pups feasted on a diet of dead mice, and soon they will be switched to a menu of a commercial animal food and baby chickens.

“They have really taken to the mice,” LaMarca said. “Once again, it shows you fox behavior. They are extraordinarily adaptive animals. They have to be, to survive on the side of a freeway like that.”