Friendly fox

Again, this is not a critique, it’s just the expression of an opinion and the personal experience accompanied by a short poem / story.
What a happy meeting! It’s not common to cross with a fox in the wild. They are not very sociable with humans and they have many reasons. In natural parks and reservations, they learn to coexist with humans and become dependent on them.
Last summer I saw a solitary young fox during the night (north-center of Portugal). That was quite surprising. Some decades ago, after the fires became a cyclic criminal tragedy and the woods were they lived were devastated, they (and the wolves) gradually disappeared. Before, it was possible to see foxes with 6/7 cubs in the wild. They mostly fed of other wild animals like rabbits, field mice, reptiles, partridges… Sometimes, they approached the villages and also ate cats, chickens and ducks.
They are really very clever and have very specific habits. When they enter in a chicken house, they kill all the birds using the same method and then go away taking with them only one chicken, because they can carry only one in their mouth. That happened once in our chicken house when I was a child. The fox killed the 19 chickens that were in there but only took one with her. All the chickens were killed by asphyxia, without blood and leaving almost no marks, only a small hematoma and the mark of the teeth in the neck. Equally astonishing was the fact that the fox didn’t destroy anything including the door lock that was made of a hard stripe of leather enrolled in a metal ring several times with several knots. The fox undid the knots and unrolled the leather stripe with damaging anything, as if a person had done it. The only proof that it hadn’t been a person but a fox was precisely the method of the killing. Impressive, isn’t it?!
Someone told me that the authorities were bringing back the wolves to the banks of the river and apparently the wolves were doing what they always did: they were eating the other wild animals and also the domestic ones (sheep, goats, cows, horses and donkeys). I think the testimonies were being exaggerated. Only one person told me about a recent wolf attack. That same person told me, very pleased, that the hunters had killed a she wolf and her 5/6 cubs. That really revolted me! The person tried to convince me that was the only way to save the herds. And I told her that the only way of saving the herds, the wolves, the natural landscape and the people in the villages was reforesting the large burned areas (where foxes and wolves used to live) and press the local and central political power to punish the arsonists (that premeditatedly start the fires), clean the remaining forests and increase the vigilance systems and the means to fight the fires. Obviously, the cleaning of the forests is also a responsibility of the citizens because a great part of those forests are private property.
People coexisted for millenniums with wolves and foxes. Why can’t they do it now?
Looking at this sweet little fox should make people think about what we are losing… Shall one day foxes and wolves remain only in story books?

Notorious

They say I’m cunning and shifty
And malicious and vicious and infamous.
They never give me a decent name;
The names they call me are not my names,
Are insults, vituperations, invectives, labels, prejudices,
Default judgments, brief sentences, summary convictions…
They sharpened so many times the knife of sarcasm in my back
That sometimes even I don’t know if I am that ominous crook
Or a simple creature of the woods,
Ignorant of all the stratagems of civilization.

In story books, I am “Jumping Puddles” or “Honest John”.
My fame precedes me,
My fame is a dirty mask that I never wore.
My fame led me to the darkest corners and caves of the forests.
And even there, without warning or appeal,
They entered my humble lair to take my auburn fur.
They made me travel around the world
To be a curiosity in a circus, a zoo, a shop.
My children are wrapped around the neck of vanity
In high town places, mansions and palaces
Where my paws were never invited to step in.

If you are listening my voice
Or looking at my eyes,
Tell me:
What do you see?
Am I the cunning crook
Or the last outcast
Expelled from my legitimate world
By your blind vanity?

São Ludovino, 30/9/2013 – 1:43 a.m.