Fox Wood Wildlife Rescue, Inc

06/09/2026

BRAVO! WELL STATED TRUTHS!

I was recently sent a link to a post that was literally just a photo of a coyote. The comments? Whew. 😳

A photo of a coyote standing in tall grass.

Not attacking anyone. Not killing anything. Just existing.

And the comments were exactly what you'd expect.

"Invasive."
"Non-native."
"They kill all the deer."
"They eat pets."
"They'll eat your children."

It's amazing how confidently people will repeat things they've never bothered to fact-check. 🤷‍♀️

Reading through it was, honestly, frustrating.

It's amazing how many people are willing to hate an animal based on myths, fear, and stories they've heard from someone who heard it from someone else.

Coyotes are NOT invasive. They are not some foreign species that showed up and took over. They ARE NATIVE to North America (all of it). They belong here just as much as deer, foxes, bobcats, eagles, hawks, and every other native species people claim to love.

The irony is that humans altered the landscape, eliminated larger predators, fragmented habitats, expanded suburbs into wild areas, and then act shocked when coyotes adapt and survive.

That's what coyotes do.

They survive.

They've survived trapping, poisoning, hunting contests, habitat loss, and decades of being demonized. Yet somehow they're still here.

And maybe that's what some people really don't like. 🤔

As for the claim that they're wiping out deer populations? Wildlife biologists have studied coyote diets for decades. The overwhelming majority of what coyotes eat consists of small mammals, insects, fruit, carrion, and whatever food is most available. They are opportunists, not deer-terminating machines.

Do they sometimes take fawns? Yes.

Do they occasionally take cats or small dogs? Yes.

So do owls, eagles, bears, mountain lions, alligators, domestic dogs, cars, disease, humans, and countless other hazards. The difference is that coyotes have become the convenient villain.

And the comments about coyotes eating children?

Come on.

There have been only two documented fatal coyote attacks on humans in modern North American records.Two. Ever.

Considering that tens of millions of people live in coyote habitat and countless encounters occur every year, that statistic alone should put things into perspective.

Meanwhile, people drive to work every day without a second thought, despite the fact that cars kill tens of thousands of people every year.

The reality is that coyotes are far more afraid of us than we are of them.

What bothers me most isn't that people don't know these facts.

It's that so many people seem eager to believe the worst.

A photo of a beautiful native wild animal gets posted, and instead of curiosity, appreciation, or respect, the response is fear, hatred, and calls for killing it.

We've become so disconnected from the natural world that simply seeing a predator exist is enough to make people demand its removal.

Coyotes aren't evil.

They aren't invasive.

They aren't plotting to eat your kids.

They're wildlife. Native wildlife.

They're part of the ecosystem that was here long before us and will hopefully remain long after we're gone.

And honestly, the comments on that post told me a lot more about people than they did about coyotes.

~Jamie @ GGWR

***photo below of some of our coyote pups currently in care.

06/09/2026

Its that time of year when people are seeing Red foxes and coyotes with Sarcoptic mange. THIS IS TREATABLE AND YOU CAN DO IT!
Treating Sarcoptic Mange in Red foxes,
by Elise Able Fox Wood Wildlife Rescue, Inc
Symptoms:
Fox out during the day, but also laying in the sun, acting lethargic, eating under bird feeders, thin fur on tail, thin fur on body, crusty eyes, scratching a lot, shaking head as though there is a bug in their ear. Swollen, scaly feet, laying in baled hay, going into culverts. A limp in hind legs. Red foxes are not nocturnal, so there must be combined symptoms, not just being out during the day.
Baby foxes, especially those younger than 5 weeks of age hide signs of mange well, as the puppy coat doesn’t fall out, it is thick and you have to part it and look very closely. They will die quickly
What you can do right away:
Start conditioning by putting out some dry cat food or dog food and hot cooked chicken in a spot where the fox will find it easily.
If possible, turn home surveillance toward the feeding station or use a trail camera to see who eats the food, and if a fox, what time. Foxes tend to keep a schedule.
Treatment:
Quickest, easiest, most effective: 3-month Bravecto chew
A single dose of the three-month Bravecto (fluralaner) Chew for a 10 lb. dog wrapped in two Greenies hickory smoke flavor two capsule size pill pockets. Form into a round meatball that can easily be tossed to the fox from a window, car, or left at a feeding station once fox is conditioned. These meatballs are also easy to pick back up and try again later in case the fox doesn’t eat it.
Bravecto Chews are much more economical when a larger size is divided. Use a razor blade, cut at room temperature. Wrap up the remaining chew in original container, then Ziplock bag. It can be refrigerated. Take advantage of promotions and sales!
88-123 lb. will treat 12 foxes
44-88 lb. will treat 8 foxes
22-44 lb. will treat 4 foxes
9-22 lb. will treat 2 foxes.
Don’t refrigerate Pill Pockets, it will dry them out. Store in a Ziplock bag or covered container room temp.
By Prescription in the USA. Most veterinarians won’t provide for a wild fox. If you get some for your dog, chances are you can have enough to cut off enough for a 10 lb fox and have enough left over to protect your dog from fleas, ticks, and mites for three months.
Over the counter outside of the country without a prescription: bestvetcare.com
Alternative Treatment "
Using Ivermectin
Ivermectin: Less expensive, over the counter, easier to obtain, but requires multiple treatments for at least a month
Recommended: 50 mL bottle of 1% injectable Ivermectin for cattle and swine. Works orally.
You can pry off the rubber stopper top with a bottle opener, or use a 16 or 18 gauge needle and 1 mL or 3 mL syringe. Insulin needles will not work.
Purchase at farm stores or online. Different brands are Agrimectin, Durvet, Bimectin, Noromectin
CAUTION: Do NOT use the Pour On – it is deadly if ingested.
Ivermectin Horse Paste is very difficult to dose accurately and may have palatability issues. A red fox weighs 10 lbs, each notch on a tube of horse Zimecterin paste represents 50lbs of animal weight, or as specified on box
Caution: Make sure there are no collies, collie breeds or collie mixes that might eat this. Collies, shelties, border collies, Australian shepherds or high mixes might be sensitive to Ivermectin and experience ataxia.
Ivermectin
Condition fox to daily food to make sure the fox will find the ivermectin. You will need to feed the fox daily until the treatment is done in order to maintain the conditioning and treatment. If the fox leaves before all eggs are hatched and the life cycle of the mite is complete, then the fox will get re-infected.
Treatment:
0.2 mL once every five days for 30 days. Its OK, if a fox gets more than one medicated meatball at a time
At the den- Litter of fox kits 0.1 mL once every five days. Scattered around, with a few more meatballs than kits , scattered widely. If one kit gets more than one, that’s ok, ivermectin is a fairly safe medication
https://www.bestvetcare.com/bravecto-for-medium-dogs-22...
https://www.tractorsupply.com/.../durvet-ivermectin...
https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html...
https://a.co/d/guuwjl5 Amazon 3 mL syringe and 18 Ga needle
https://a.co/d/7fqNC3e Greenies Hickory Smoke Flavor Capsule-sized pill pockets
Troubleshooting tips
How do I make sure the fox gets it? This is why we use conditioning with food – dry cat food and hot cooked chicken. Put it out in the early morning to reduce raccoon, opossum, skunks, etc from getting it. Use a camera, foxes will keep a schedule. If the fox is in a culvert or under a shed or deck, you can pt the medication-laced meatball underneath or inside the culvert with it. Also, meds can often be tossed from a window directly to the fox. Meds can be tossed from a car window to the fox. Pick them back up and try again if the fox gets frightened and leaves the area, not eating the meds.
There is more than one fox. How do I target the sick one? Mange is very contagious, so they should all be treated if they’re coming for the same food. Do the best you can, timing is the key. Foxes tend to keep a schedule.
Should I trap the fox and relocate it? Relocating without treating will infect a new population. The fox in question will also die. What if it has kits depending on it? Treat, and then if needed, use scare balloons to discourage fox from coming back.
Should I trap the fox and take it to a wildlife rehabilitator: What if it has babies? Also, stress from capture can cause a sudden downward spiral from shock and a quick death. The fox has the best chance of recovery in its own environment.
Can my dog catch Sarcoptic mange from the fox? Your dog can catch Sarcoptic mange from the grass, like the fox did. In order to catch it from the fox, it would have to have physical contact i.e. roll on a dead fox. Protection through the Spring and summer is a good idea. Bravecto, Nexguard , Simperica, Trifexis, Seresto collar all protect dogs from Sarcoptic Mange mites. However, these meds don’t all necessarily cure mange in the fox, and multiple doses are generally necessary, i.e NexGuard needs three doses, one every two weeks for 6 weeks.
Will the Bravecto kill my cats if they eat it? Bravecto for dogs and cats have identical ingredients and are the same strength. The fox is the same average size as a cat (10 lbs)
What else can I use to put the medications in? Anything that the fox can eat in a single bite. Foxes love sweets too. A marshmallow or glazed donut hole work nicely. Some people say to use hard boiled eggs, but these are too large and must be broken up to be eaten. The meds may fall out and go uneaten.
How can I tell if my fox is getting better? Fur may not grow back until fall, so look for spring in the step, clear eyes, being more skittish, and not being seen as much, less scratching and ear shaking
Elise Able
Fox Wood Wildlife Rescue, Inc
[email protected]

06/06/2026

Its time to post a reminder about retractable leashes.
Walking a dog on a retractable leash can lead to severe issues, including sudden neck or trachea injuries from abrupt stops, deep cuts or burns from the thin cord, and loss of control, allowing your dog to run into traffic or confront other animals.
Risks to Humans: Severe Cuts and Rope Burns: If you grab the thin cord while it's rapidly reeling in or out, it can easily slice or burn your hands. In extreme cases, entanglement around fingers can lead to amputations.
Entanglement and Tripping: The long, thin cord easily tangles around human legs or other dogs, which can cause you to trip, fall, and suffer broken bones.
Loss of Handle: If you accidentally drop the bulky plastic handle, the clattering object often chases the dog, causing them to panic and run away in terror.
Lack of Quick Control: Retractable leashes place the dog far ahead of you, reducing your ability to pull them back or redirect them quickly in busy, localized environments.
Risks to Dogs Neck and Spine Trauma: Hitting the end of a fully extended leash or locking the mechanism suddenly causes a whiplash-like jerk. This can cause ruptured vertebrae, neck strain, or damage to the trachea (windpipe).Leg Injuries: If a dog gets tangled in the cord, the rapid tightening can break the legs of smaller dogs or cause severe friction wounds.
Traffic and Hazard Accidents: The extended length allows dogs to wander into the street or approach unfamiliar wildlife or other dogs before you can react.
Encourages Bad Habits: Because the leash always holds tension, it reinforces pulling behavior rather than teaching your dog to walk calmly by your side

06/01/2026

Excellent read!

The United States has killed roughly half a million coyotes per year for over a century. The coyote's range has expanded by forty percent in the same period.

That sentence contains the entire species in two lines. Every other predator in North America that faced sustained, federally funded lethal control was reduced or eliminated. The wolf was erased from the lower 48 by the 1930s. The grizzly was pushed into a handful of mountain strongholds. The mountain lion was driven out of the eastern two-thirds of the continent. The coyote absorbed the same pressure, the same traps, the same poison, the same aerial gunning, the same bounty systems, and responded by walking into every state the wolf had vacated, every city the mountain lion had abandoned, and every landscape that lethal control was supposed to clear.

Nobody planned this. The coyote was not reintroduced. It was not protected. It was not managed into recovery. It simply refused to be managed out of existence, and the biological machinery that made that possible is stranger than most people realize.
Start with the breeding. A coyote pair that mates in January or February will produce a litter of roughly six pups by April. If the local population is under heavy hunting or trapping pressure, litter sizes increase. Females in heavily persecuted populations produce more pups per litter than females in stable populations. The mechanism is not fully understood, but the effect is measurable and consistent. You kill more coyotes, and the survivors produce more coyotes. The population compensates for removal in real time.

Then there is the pair bond.

Stan Gehrt, a wildlife ecologist at Ohio State University, has been running the largest urban coyote study in history out of Chicago since the year 2000. Over six years, his team genetically sampled 236 coyotes across Cook, Kane, DuPage, and McHenry counties. They tested eighteen litters totaling ninety-six offspring. They were looking for evidence of infidelity, because every other supposedly monogamous canid species that had been genetically tested, including arctic foxes and mountain bluebirds, turned out to be cheating when the DNA was checked.

The coyotes were not cheating. Zero instances of polygamy. Zero instances of extra-pair paternity. Zero instances of a mate leaving while the other was still alive. One hundred percent genetic monogamy across the entire study population.
Gehrt said he was shocked. The Chicago metro area holds an estimated one to two thousand coyotes. Territories abut each other. Males make long-distance forays through other pairs' ranges. The opportunities to stray are constant. They do not take them. Pairs have been tracked staying together for up to ten years, separating only when one of them dies.

During estrus, a mated pair spends every hour together. Running, hunting, marking territory. Cecilia Hennessy, the study's senior author, described it simply. They will always be right at each other's side. The male practices what biologists call diligent mate guarding, staying close to the female and keeping rival males away. But the genetic data suggests the guarding is not even necessary. The females are not interested in other males either.

The payoff of that fidelity is paternal investment. A male coyote that knows every pup in the den is genetically his has a direct evolutionary stake in keeping them alive. He brings food. He defends the den. He teaches the pups to hunt. He spends as much time raising the litter as the female does. In a polygamous species, the male's genetic investment is spread across multiple litters by multiple females, and his per-litter commitment drops accordingly. In a monogamous species with verified genetic fidelity, every calorie the male brings to the den is going to his own offspring. The pair bond is not sentimental. It is the most efficient allocation of parental energy the species has found.

When a mate dies, the surviving coyote grieves. Gehrt documented the behavior across multiple observed deaths in the Chicago study. The surviving animal produces persistent, long howls that researchers describe as mournful. It shows lethargy. Its appetite drops. It returns to the spot where the partner was last seen. During one capture operation, Gehrt briefly sedated a female and took her into the lab for examination. Her mate, standing outside, howled nonstop until Gehrt brought her back. There was clearly a lot of emotional stuff going on with that animal, he said.

Only three to five percent of mammal species are monogamous by any definition. Genetically verified monogamy, where DNA testing confirms that neither partner ever breeds outside the pair, is rarer still. The coyote, the animal that most of North America treats as a pest to be shot on sight, practices a form of pair fidelity that is more absolute than wolves, more consistent than foxes, and more genetically verified than almost any wild carnivore ever studied.
The animal that we have spent a century trying to exterminate mates for life, raises its young cooperatively, grieves its dead, compensates for persecution by producing larger litters, and has responded to the most sustained predator-control campaign in the history of wildlife management by quietly colonizing every state in the continental United States.

We have posted about coyotes on this page before. The Florida Keys coyote. The Chicago parking garage coyote. Carl in Golden Gate Park. Hal in Central Park. Every one of those stories is a footnote in a larger pattern. The coyote is not surviving despite what humans do to it. It is surviving because nothing humans have done to it has been sufficient to outpace an animal that breeds fast, bonds absolutely, and replaces its losses before the next trapping season starts.

Source: Hennessy, C., Gehrt, S.D., et al. (2012). Journal of Mammalogy / Ohio State University / National Geographic, January 2026 / Cook County Coyote Project.

05/31/2026

One new pen up for this years "special needs" fox kits! It is difficult to build a large enough "fox proof " pen. The rule of thumb is, "you build it, we will escape from it". Its a fortress. Thank you to Blake, Matt and Ethan for your invaluable help! Thank you to all who donate to us so that we can afford projects like this

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

05/24/2026

FYI: Our page is being bombarded by scammers trying to "sell" Fox Wood shirts. They are tagging our followers, and making it look like it is us making and selling these shirts. THIS IS NOT US! Though we try to quickly remove the comments tagging people, they are relentless and are commenting on posts that are years old. We've tried making it so no one could comment on our posts, but they keep finding a way. FOX WOOD WILDLIFE RESCUE DOES NOT SELL SHIRTS, AND WOULD NEVER TAG OUR LOYAL FOLLOWERS ON POSTS LIKE THIS. There is a good chance your credit card information is being stolen by these scammers. WE ARE SO SORRY YOU ARE ALL BEING VICTIMIZED BY THESE SCAMMERS, WHO KEEP CHANGING THEIR NAMES SO WE CAN'T BLOCK THEM. FACEBOOK HAS BEEN NO HELP WITH THIS ISSUE. Please keep letting us know when these posts go up, and we will remove them. thank you so much!

Send a message to learn more

04/22/2026

🦊🦊🦊ATTENTION: This season is a busy one. In the spirit of giving my wild patients the best care possible, I am taking a break from social media and a few other projects in order to give them the full attention they deserve. I will be unable to see or respond to FB posts and messages or see links Fox Wood or I am tagged in. As long as e-mails don't get overwhelming, I will continue to respond to e-mail requests for help and advice ( [email protected] ) . I will leave this page up for now, as it contains valuable information. Should spammers or negativity appear, I hope someone will e-mail me and let me know and I will take care of it immediately, possibly by removing the page all together. I am not ceasing to serve the community, simply removing one aspect of it that has been taking too much valuable time and energy from the animals in need. I sincerely love my followers and supporters and hope you understand . Enjoy your summer! 🐾🦊❤️

04/13/2026

04/09/2026

THE MANGY FOX IS NOT A THREAT. SHE IS IN AGONY. AND SHE IS TREATABLE.
A nearly hairless fox stumbles across your spring lawn in the pale April light, moving so slowly she seems completely oblivious to your presence.

We see this "zombie-like" behavior and immediately dial animal control, assuming she is rabid and a dangerous public health threat.

In reality, this native Red Fox (Status: Least Concern) has sarcoptic mange. Microscopic mites (Sarcoptes scabiei) are tunneling through her skin 24 hours a day. Her lack of fear isn't rabies; it's profound sleep deprivation. The constant pain has simply overridden her survival instincts. Right now in April, foxes are actively nursing kits. A mother’s death from euthanasia dooms her entire litter, while the close quarters of a spring den allow these mites to spread rapidly among her vulnerable young.

Healthy foxes are vital interconnected predators that protect our communities by naturally controlling Lyme-carrying rodent populations.

Sarcoptic mange is completely curable. Instead of calling animal control—who will likely euthanize her—contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitator. Many will authorize and guide you through a targeted, inexpensive ivermectin baiting protocol right in your yard.

She isn't a monster. She is an exhausted mother trapped in continuous pain, and she is just six weeks away from a total cure.