Ahead of me on the trail something stood out. In a moment my brain put definition on the image. It was a beautiful red fox. It looked as if it were sleeping in a peaceful drowse. But why directly on a hiking trail? Well, it only took a few moments to realize it was dead. Some lunatic had shot it. I was overwhelmed. Angry. Depressed. What was this wonderful animal doing with it’s day before having it’s life taken away so randomly? Hunting? Seeking a mate? Bringing food home to pups? Did it suffer excruciating pain? Does a fox panic when it feels it’s life draining away? I wanted to say something about it but nothing seems to feel right. There it is. Just a non-human life taken randomly in some unknown forest in the middle of Wisconsin. Some days I hate our world.
insignificant
April 28th, 2006 | 
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Ahead of me on the trail something stood out. In a moment my brain put definition on the image. It was a beautiful red fox. It looked as if it were sleeping in a peaceful drowse. But why directly on a hiking trail? Well, it only took a few moments to realize it was dead. Some lunatic had shot it. I was overwhelmed. Angry. Depressed. What was this wonderful animal doing with it’s day before having it’s life taken away so randomly? Hunting? Seeking a mate? Bringing food home to pups? Did it suffer excruciating pain? Does a fox panic when it feels it’s life draining away? I wanted to say something about it but nothing seems to feel right. There it is. Just a non-human life taken randomly in some unknown forest in the middle of Wisconsin. Some days I hate our world.
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That sucks.
Is there any possiblity that maybe the fox was possibly rabid or something crazy like that? Perhaps tangled with someone’s dog? Maybe there was a reason that is not immediately obvious.
OTOH, the world is full of numbskulls. Hard to believe that anyone with any sense who appreciates something like a walk in the woods would be so insensible as to shoot wildlife just for target practice. Yet not all who walk in the woods share the appreciation of it.
Last year my neighbor heard a cat screaming. As the sound persisted, he went searching and found a cat in the bushes with an arrow through it’s neck. Neighborhood kids had shot it. The vet repaired the damage, and the cat was returned to it’s owners.
Snakes alive!
Counting snakes out on the river today. The water snakes are mating. Between last weekend and this, I’ve counted over 30 of them sunning on rocks and logs. No cottonmouths to be seen. But I did see a King Snake today (probably hunting water snakes!), a rare sighting around here, least for me. And a Black Racer last weekend. All the rest Northern Water Snakes. And all the bass fishermen go on about all the moccasins out on the logs and what not. And they’re not, usually. I’ve counted exactly 3 water moccasins and one copperhead in the last 5 years and dozens and dozens of water snakes which bear a superficial resemblance to their viper cousins. I guess it’s the ones you don’t see that ya need to worry about. It’s the copperheads with thier stealth cloaking technology that give me the willies. Snakes are cool.
T
You’d want to think so. This is well within a large state park and the first thing you’d hope is that no one had a gun in this “public” area. Guns are restricted to areas well away from trails as you’d imagine. The fox could have been shot and roamed in to the park area I suppose but by the looks of it, I don’t think it could have come in from outside the park and made it this far.
In additon any sort of problem within the park should have been reported. At least by law abiding people.
Without testing obviously you can’t be 100% sure but to the eye this was a very health fox that had been shot within 24 hours.
Thing is in our area we have some problems with poachers and people just shooting animals within the park. Some arrests recentlly but as you can imagine it’s hard to prove or to catch people.