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Athena, the Bengal cat we rescued from the City of Buffalo Animal Shelter, is now over her respiratory infection  and anger at the indignity of being at the shelter in the first place (see photo above..) and is doing fantastic in her new home with Dawn Camp of Camp Skipping Pig. Dawn also does pig rescue! Check out Dawns website and see the pictures of the Kune Kunes at http://www.skippingkunekunes.com/

Opossums are so beautiful and sweet! This little girl is going to stay at Fox Wood for the winter and be released in the spring.

The building where we keep wildlife that is in need of critical care and TLC has been torn apart for nearly two years.  The fellow who started to drywall the building has disappeared and is not expected back any time soon. So the room sits in disarray, half of the work done and it is completely unusable at this point. We don’t have a place to put wildlife that needs to be indoors and cared for constantly. Work that needs to be done includes finishing hanging the drywall, finishing the drywall, priming and painting. then a new floor needs to be laid, and then trim work to finish.  We simply don’t have the funds to hire professionals, yet we want the work done right. Can you help by donating professional services? Can you help by donating funds for the paint, electrical, flooring or trim work? Please contact us asap if you can! We simply cannot go without this building another year.

Fox Wood has a new baby! Check out the adorable baby beaver that was orphaned by nuisance trappers called to destroy his parents.  Soon he will be swimming in one (or all) of our three ponds. We are hoping that we will be able to acquire a second baby beaver to raise with this one.  Donations toward our new beaver enclosure are appreciated. See another Picture in our Animals Needing Sponsors Folder!

What would you name the wildest feral cat you had ever encountered as an experienced cat rescuer? The Sheriff called me late one night because a caller had reported seeing a mother cat and three kittens living in a drainage pipe that went under route 219 between the Microtel and WalMart.  It was an  extremely cold Thanksgiving 2006 weekend night, I grabbed my box traps and some canned cat food and went to get them. Several hours later I had all four cats- hissing, spitting balls of fire in box traps. Now what? I called good friend and cat lover Colleen for help (most people  know how allergic I am to cats!)  The pastel grey mother cat needed to be spayed, given her shots and  wormed. But she proved too much for even the vet clinic who could not get her to go under anesthesia despite a number of attempts.  They would have to try again the following day when the drugs in her system wore off and there wouldn’t be a threat of overdose. After considerable effort, “Nasty” as she was soon named, was anaesthetized and spayed. Her kittens, Timmy, Jimmy and Kimmy, were quite wild but were eventually placed in a barn home.   Nasty went to Colleen’s home to recover and await placement in a barn that didn’t mind if cats weren’t tame.  Homes like this are very hard to find and please, if you have room for one or more healthy spayed or neutered un-social  cats that  have all their shots, please contact me at foxladye@yahoo.com.   Because of the lack of suitable places to release these cats,  Nasty had to stay at Colleen’s home.  Feeding and cleaning her litter box was always risky because Nasty didn’t want any human hands near her. Over time though, Colleen and her husband gained Nasty’s trust and now, a year later, Nasty is a loving, gentle housecat that loves human touch and has proven to us that even the wildest of feral cats have potential as human companions! Please  consider opening your heart to a homeless cat!

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Our Observatory Clinic is in desperate need! Due to a combination of heavy water damage, squirrels, and dog and cat damage we were forced to gut our clinic and re-do it completely. We have re-insulated and run new electric and water, but now have run out of funds to finish it. In hindsight, we never should have gutted it before getting the estimate to put it back together.  It is a mess and we have been without our clinic since June.  We desperately need funds to put it back together again – drywall, wood paneling, Paint, lights, new windows, a new floor and repairs around the door are desperately needed.  We aren’t able to employ Scouts for the work needed from here on since this type of work calls for professionals.  The estimate to complete this work is $12,000.  We welcome donations by contractors to complete this work.

Our New Spring 2007 Newsletter!  Check it out!

Fox Wood Newsletter Spring 2007

Click above to Download the pdf version

Go Sabres!!!!!

Once again, a “cougar story” is circulating the Southern tier area in New York. The pictures attached to the e-mail have been circulating for years!  The same exact photos circulated a few years back as being taken at a cabin in Steuben County by a woman who owns the cabin.  They, and the whole “cougar story” are pure BS.   The photos are old and circulated in Michigan many years back along with the same kind of story, trying to make people believe they were taken there recently.  The photos were actually taken at a cabin out in Lander Wyoming by Dr. Dave Rogers.  It appears that the writer of this original e-mail also thinks that Pumas, Mountain lions and cougars are all different types of animals.. Check out this link and read about the photos and story circulated on the internet, as well as about the true story about the photos:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/patiomountainlion.asp

The local game wardens keep denying they released cougars because they didn’t release cougars. they didn’t release coyotes either, but they just can’t stop folks from making stories up and trying to create hysteria.  Unfortunately gullible people will always believe this stuff and perpetuate it.

Read the recently circulated e-mail hoax below:

These pictures where taken of a Puma/Mountain Lion on Hoag Rd. Feb. 17th 2007 outside of Busti, NY . This is in our area! I have heard many people talking about spotting mountain lions and puma’s running around in the area, but the New York State Game Warden keeps denying it.  They keep re-enforcing that it’s rumors and that they have not released these types of animals into our area to control the population of the coyotes.  Well here is the proof!

I know I saw something that looked like a puma, which I believe can also look from a distance like a cougar/mountain lion about a year ago running across Hunt Rd . I had to do a double take, just the way it moved I knew it wasn’t a dog nor a fox!  It’s obvious the women who took these pictures did not frighten off the wild cat with the flash from the camera as well as her presence.  I’m just wondering; did these people who released these big cats into our area ever stop to think about the possibility of the cat’s not going after the coyote population and maybe going after domestic animals and possibly small Children, hey why not even a person jogging thru the woods or on a country road.

As described from the photo’s , the wild cat was on this woman’s deck on Hoag Rd. interested in her two domestic cats that just happen to be sitting on the inside of that very thin glass door.  It’s obvious the large cat is not scared of the human or domestic presence!  That really worries me!  I know there is something in our woods behind Sunset Dr, in the area of Baker St, Shadyside Rd, and Hunt Rd. in Busti/Lakewood, NY.  A few years back my parent’s boxer (dog) was attacked by something that left a nice laceration on her back and back leg area, causing her to get stitches.  Well I know I don’t feel too safe walking around outside at night!

We are always up for a challenge, so when we heard about the Pot bellied piglet that had escaped from the Springville Auction, we sprung into action. The pig had been loose for three weeks and had already been very lucky that the weather was mild, but its luck would soon run out.  It had been sleeping in a patch of woods at night and rooting for food in the cemetery by day.  No one could catch it and it was wary from being chased.

I decided that a humane trap would be the best thing to try first.  Three traps were set up in the area and baited with a trail of cookies.  By the second day, we caught our little pig!

I have learned a lot about pigs, including how intelligent they are.  We have been having fun getting to know this little guy, who is yet unnamed.  More photos will follow, but for now, here are some photos taken of the little guy when he was “living in the wild…”