Outfoxing Deadly Mange

By Susannah Moore

One of the great things about living in Alexandria is the abundance of wooded areas and natural habitats, which are also perfect for wildlife and wildlife-watching. Alexandria is home to squirrels, bats, opossums, raccoons, foxes and more.

Fairlington resident Karen Dadey became something of a local celebrity last year when she organized neighbors to trap foxes with mange on their private property to send them to a wildlife rehabber like Nirvana Ridge Wildlife Refuge in Culpepper. Virginia residents who trap sick foxes on private property with the goal of sending them directly to a wildlife rehabber or veterinarian are protected under the Good Samaritan law.

Dadey purchased two traps herself and now she and her group of volunteers have seven. They have also worked with the Animal Welfare League of Arlington to catch foxes. “Fox rescue is truly about mange eradication and protecting our fox population to achieve a healthy ecosystem balance,” said Dadey. Foxes eat small mammals, birds, frogs, fish and insects and berries.

Maybe you’ve seen them in your neighborhood — foxes with patches of their fur missing or no fur at all.

These foxes are likely suffering from sarcoptic mange, a highly transmissible infection caused by microscopic mites that are passed by direct physical contact. Symptoms of the disease are intense itching, scabbing, crusty or dry skin, and loss of fur and weight. The disease can also cause behavioral changes.

“A mange-stricken fox may be mistaken for a rabid one because of their sickly appearance and seeming lack of fear," according to the Humane Society.

"Mange-afflicted animals try to maintain their body temperature seeking any warm places they can find. Death may arise from a wide variety of causes, including starvation and hypothermia,” reads the Humane Society website.

Foxes can sometimes recover from mange on their own, if there is a low level of infection, but if more severe, they require rehabilitation.

The mites that cause mange in animals can lead to minor irritation in humans, but the mites cannot survive on the human body. However, domestic pets can contract mange if they come into contact with an infected animal, although common flea and tick medicine help prevent the disease. Mange has also been seen in other wildlife such as black bears. Interestingly, mange primarily affects red foxes and is rarely seen in wild gray foxes.

The Wildlife Center of Virginia, a conservation organization that provides health care to native wildlife, located in Waynesboro, Virginia, says that the number of foxes with mange is on the rise “due to human encroachment and well-meaning citizens providing food/water sources that then spread the disease more rapidly,” said Maliah Carroll, a staff member at the Wildlife Center of Virginia.

Foxes with mange are typically seen in the Alexandria area every year, according to Tony Rankin, COO/Chief of Animal Services for the Animal Welfare League of Alexandria, but you may be noticing them more right now because red foxes in Virginia mate from December to February and pups (also known as cubs or kits) are born in late March or early April.

What can you do if you think you see a fox with mange wandering in your neighborhood? First, never try to feed or medicate the sick animal yourself. It is illegal and unsafe to medicate wild animals in Virginia. “[It carries] the risk of over-dosing/under-dosing wildlife, medicating the wrong animal (including dogs/cats), and the safety issue correlated to the interaction with the fox on the animal's part as well as the citizen,” Carroll emphasized.

It is also illegal to trap wild animals on public property or to trap them in order to relocate them somewhere else. Rankin encourages City of Alexandria residents to report sightings of foxes they suspect might have mange.

“When we receive reports, we initially go out to the area where the sighting occurred to try to determine the current health status of the animal,"

Rankin explained. "If we are able to locate and capture, we will do so but oftentimes the fox is still quite mobile and we may not be able to locate it. In this case, we would ask the reporting party to follow up with any further sightings. If we have confirmed sightings in a general area, we would likely set a trap to try to capture the fox. Once captured, we work closely with local wildlife rehabilitators that are able to treat the condition and then re-release the fox in the area where it was captured.”

Fairfax County does not currently have a county-sponsored program to treat mange in wildlife. Residents are encouraged to contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitator to report sick animals, however in cases where an animal is beyond recovery, Animal Control will humanely euthanize the animal.

Keep in mind that due to an ongoing tapeworm infection that the Department of Wildlife Resources is trying to contain and monitor, Fairfax County is one of over a dozen Virginia counties where a fox must be rehabilitated in the county of origin. A list of wildlife rehabilitators in Virginia can be found at dwr.virginia.gov/ wildlife/injured/rehabilitators/ where you can search by county.

Ed Marits is an animal behaviorist who has decades of experience with wildlife and other animals and has worked with animals all over the world. He now resides in the Mount Vernon area and until recently was the director of Second

Chance Animal Rescue of Mount Vernon. He says that foxes are often misunderstood because they are one of the few species that can carry rabies.

While they are predators, they are usually not aggressive unless threatened. "They can have diseases, but this is generally controlled by the ecology. They are hunters of vermin, they do not damage property or flora, and they are part of the overall management of nature," Marits explained.

While he says there has not necessarily been a significant increase in foxes with mange, or to the fox population, mange is still a problem. It can kill a fox in a few months and is a painful death, causing loss of appetite, dehydration, lethargy or uncharacteristic wandering. Foxes with mange are treated using the common antiparasitic, Ivermectin.

"We don’t want to capture the foxes if possible, for contamination reasons. We would like to be able to find a place where it frequents and feed it for about a week. We use all kinds of tricks, like Ivermectin in peanut butter or a hot dog. Treatment is erratic and difficult. Often we can get one dose or maybe two or three over a long period. Success is to see the hair growing back and the behavior changing from lethargic to active," said Marits.

Keeping animals from pain is Marits' first priority and he is happy to share his knowledge of wildlife with anyone who is interested in learning more.