Baby Grey Foxes Reunited With Mom Thanks To Peninsula Shelter

BURLINGAME, CA — Just in time for Mother’s Day, the Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA (PHS/SPCA) assisted with the reunification of four baby grey foxes and their mother in Hillsborough last week.

"A concerned resident in Hillsborough found four baby grey foxes in her backyard and after waiting nearly a day to see if the mother fox was around, she called us for help," said PHS/SPCA Communications Manager Buffy Martin Tarbox.

"We brought the babies back to our Wildlife Care Center where they were being kept warm in an incubator and being fed a mother’s milk replacement formula," she said. "Two days later, the resident noticed the mother fox had returned and was looking for her kits, so we so we brought them back and it was a happy reunion."

Grey foxes are native to the San Francisco Bay Area. They are unique in that they climb trees, unlike other types of fox breeds. They are most often active during the daytime and can be distinguished by the black strip of fur that runs the length of the top of their tail.

“We placed the babies in a box with a towel covering them near where they were first found and crossed our fingers that the mother would return. Around dusk she did return and took her babies one by one back to their den,” according to Tarbox. “If the mother hadn’t come back for her babies, we would have brought them back to our shelter and cared for them until they were old enough to be returned to the wild.”

To learn more about how to determine if a young animal has been abandoned and requires human intervention please visit www.phs-spca.org.

PHS/SPCA’s Wildlife Care Center successfully rehabilitates 1,200 to 1,400 animals each year and is funded entirely by donations.

— PHOTOS AND STORY SUBMITTED FOR PUBLICATION BY: Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA