I saw a fox with mange in my yard: Is there anything I can do to help?

The fox that I’d see running in front of my office window looked mangy, but I didn’t think anything of that. Now I wish I had.

A neighbor found the fox dead in her yard a couple of weeks ago, and after looking up mange, it’s not just something that makes their fur look bad.

Mange, according to the Wildlife Center of Virginia, is a debilitating disease caused by parasites that causes intense skin irritation, to the point that they eventually become thin, depressed and lethargic because of an inability to consume enough calories to support themselves nutritionally while also fighting off the disease.

Per the Wildlife Center, mange is treatable through the administration of an oral or injectable anti-parasitic drug.

I felt bad – awful – that I didn’t know that anything could be done, so I contacted the Wildlife Center to find out what I could have and should have done with our local fox.

The advice that I got from a contact at the Wildlife Center is: don’t touch them, don’t attempt to capture them, call a professional.

The Wildlife Center itself, it turns out, can provide emergency care for a fox with mange, but because foxes are considered a rabies vector species, and the wildlife hospital there cares for a high volume of animals, foxes are generally transmitted to other facilities for long-term care.

The Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources offers a link to licensed wildlife rehabilitators who can help, and there’s a link to resources available elsewhere in the U.S. on the Humane Society of the United States website.

There’s no guarantee what happens from there, but mange is horrible for the animal involved, and can decimate a local wildlife population if it is allowed to spread.

I can at least do something next time I encounter this, basically.