Family of orphaned fox kits has been re-released into Colorado wild after major rehab effort

Colorado Parks and Wildlife shared a success story that involves a family of orphaned fox kits earlier this week, detailing how the animals were rehabilitated and taught to fend for themselves prior to their re-release into the wild.

According to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the four kits were found orphaned in the Dolores area in April. Quite young at the time, the kits would have been unable to survive on their own.

Given the fire circumstances, the fox family was taken to Colorado Parks and Wildlife's Frisco Creek Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, where they would spend the summer growing and learning essential skills.

At first, the fox kits needed to be bottle-fed for several days, but they soon moved on to fruits, veggies, and whole prey, all while human contact was extremely limited.

Despite the initial bottle feeding, human-animal contact was strictly avoided in order to prevent the foxes from feeling comfortable around humans. Visual barriers were used to prevent the foxes from seeing what humans were doing and staff avoided conversation near their pen so that the fox kits wouldn't grow comfortable being around people.

Eventually, the fox kits were becoming self-sufficient hunters, soon able to take down mice, rats, rabbits, and quail, with deer meat also supplementing their diet to ensure the animals were getting the nutrients they needed.

As these essential skills were being developed, the fox were moved into an outdoor space that better emulated what life in the wild would be like. The fox kits learned how to dig burrows for shelter and protection, as well as how to climb. Hunting skills were also continually honed.

In recent days, the fox kits were deemed old enough and skilled enough to return to the wild, with District Wildlife Manager Matt Sturdevant releasing all four animals near where they were first found. The fox kits ran off into the wild with officials confident they'll be able to thrive.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife thanked rehabilitation center manager Michael Sirochman for the hard work that went into the successful rehabilitation effort.

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