Animal lovers in Montreal’s Westmount are teaming up to rescue a sick fox

A group of animal lovers has been tracking a sick fox all day on Monday in Westmount. It’s one of several foxes spotted in recent weeks suffering from mange — a painful skin disease that leaves them weak, hairless, and vulnerable.

With no official wildlife rescue services in Montreal, concerned residents have banded together to help their wild neighbours survive.

“We also get food for the fox to send to our rescuer to trap it. We’re kind of like the go-tos for everything. We become like a rogue wannabe rescue group, I guess, because there’s no one really else that is doing this,” said Karolina Jez, photographer, content creator & animal advocate.

Diana Anderson, physician, architect, and Westmount resident, said, “We stopped at a stop sign, and there was a very sick, sad-looking fox trying to drink water from a little puddle on the road.”

Adding, “I spent the better part of four or five hours calling multiple shelters, rescue agencies, public security, police. I even went to City Hall to try to find out who can help. And the message I really got was that no, nobody helps with foxes. Nobody can trap it. And even if we could, there’s nowhere to take it for medical care. I even called our eco museum who I know rehabilitates animals. And those calls continued into the next day on the weekend. And I could not find any help until eventually someone through social media sent me Jean-Yves’ contact information.”

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Jean-Yves Lemay spent the day searching, hoping to catch the young fox before its condition worsens.

“At first, the fox doesn’t know what is going on because it starts to scratch itself, because it’s very itchy, and it gets intensively. And then after that, well, it gets weak, because he’s tired, because he can’t sleep, and he can’t eat, can’t drink, get infection, many infections on his body. Then after four, five, six months, well, he just died in a lot of pain, a lot of suffering, and agony. It’s very, very bad disease,” said Jean-Yves Lemay, a construction contractor and animal rescuer.

The wildlife rescuer says that once the fox is trapped and treated, it will need at least a month before it can be released back into the wild. But after 10 hours of searching on Monday, the cage remained empty.

“I would love to see some kind of a program implemented in Quebec to help wildlife more. It’s really crazy that so many people have tried to help these foxes, and it’s so hard to find somebody to really step in and help them,” said Jez.

Karen Levine Cohen, designer and a Westmount resident, saying, “It makes me feel hopeful that people actually care about the animals that we’re living in our neighborhood.”