Thursday, 13 October 2016 - 14:40
Fox spotted on the loose in Amsterdam
Amsterdam's Jordaan had a special visitor on Wednesday. A young fox was seen wandering the streets until two entrepreneurs managed to lure him into an optician's shop, RTL Nieuws reports.
"It was crazy on the street. He looked frightened", Diana van Gorp, who helped capture the fox, said to RTL Nieuws. "Walked with his tail between his legs in the street and kept peeing."
Van Gorp and another entrepreneur on Kleine Leliestraat managed to lure the fox into an optician by making a trail of pieces of chicken. Once inside, the fox was remarkably calm.
The animal ambulance was called. The intention was to free the fox in the countryside immediately, but the fox ended up being taken to a shelter. "We'll let him recover a bit, because he did not behave like a wild animal. He was very tame. It doesn't seem right to send him into the wide world immediately. We'll let him recover then run wild. Otherwise he'll immediately end up with people on the sidewalk again." a spokesperson said to the broadcaster.
According to ecologist Martin Melchers, finding foxes in the city is a rare occurrence. "Many foxes live on the outskirts of the city, but it happens only once every few years that a fox walks into the city center", he said to the broadcaster. According to him, foxes that wander into the city are often young males who were driven away by their fathers. "They need to find their own habitat. But in a city like Amsterdam, there's nothing to find for a fox. There you can not survive as a fox or end up under a car."
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