Orphan foxes and red tape

Barely missed getting arrested this past week while trying to be a "good guy."

It started with my early morning reading of the Sheriff's logs. One of the hundred plus entries from Sunday said, "injured fox on West Valley Road. Several pups in ditch."

During my 6:45 "Shootin' the bull" broadcast session with announcer Mike Hammer, I mentioned over the air my concern about the fox family.

Later that day while gassing my car, I met a ranch couple from out that way.

The man said he heard me that morning and he had seen the mother fox lying in the road right after it apparently had been hit by a vehicle.

She was still alive so he picked her up and put her off the roadway near the pups who were hanging around a culvert.

I got the exact location from him and at 11 a.m. went out to see what I could see. There was no sign of the mother fox's body but did see one small pup sticking its head out of the culvert.

That's when I went back to town and checked out my "live trap" and found it was too small for catching young foxes.

The plan was to capture the little foxes before they starved and then figure out what to do with them.

Iris made it clear that no matter how "cute" they were, putting wild animals in our garage was not one of the acceptable options.

That is when I went to the Fish and Game office to see if I could borrow a larger "live trap."

Warden Chief Ed Kelly came out of his office and told me in clearly understandable terms that I was asking them to help me break the law.

I got the idea he felt my plan was like borrowing his revolver so I could rob a bank.

Ed led me back to his office where he made a copy of the law regarding "Restrictions on Possession of Wild Animals 50-23-101, Paragraph (4) "Wild Animal" means a skunk, fox, raccoon, or bat. Other species of normally non-domesticated animals known to be capable of transmitting rabies may be added to this list through the adoption of rules by the department of public health and human services…"

Then we went to law 50-223-102: "Exceptions. No person may possess a wild animal unless he possessed it for at least six months prior to January 1, 1982, or… it is contained in a zoological exhibition … ad infinitum,

There it was in official black and white, another rule by big brother to protect the great unwashed masses from our own ignorance.

There were a couple of personal mental factors at work:

(1) I think baby foxes are among the cutest, smartest, and personable animals in the wild.

(2) I do not know of anybody around here who got rabies from a fox. But! I could see my rescue plan was going down the drain.

Drove back out West Valley Road to put food out for the orphan foxes even though I knew they were probably doomed by losing their mother at such a young age.

Then a lady from a nearby house told me there were several of those pups around and she was bringing them food and water. Felt a little better.

Found an active North Valley fox den on Wednesday but didn't see any of the occupants so went back at 5:45 Thursday morning.

Two of the pups were having their early morning romp, chasing each other, resting and wrestling.

The rising sun wasn't hitting the den area but I took about fifty shots of them before heading on up to the park for Over the Hill hiking day.

I'll never know if they came out because on Friday the machine developing the slides broke a gear and the film was ruined by chemicals.

That's the first and only time such an unfortunate accident has happened in the fifty plus years I've been shooting color.

Thursday was a magnificent day in Glacier but about noon one of the Over the Hillers was downed by a heart attack two miles up Baring Creek.

After solving some tough communications problems a Park rescue team got Jim down difficult snowfields to a level spot and the ALERT crew got him out to the hospital.

It looked touch and go for a while but he is making a good recovery now.

Most of us pack small radios with a three to five mile range.

But none of them could contact the outside from that deep Baring Creek canyon between Going to the Sun Mountain and Goat Mountain.

Elmer Searle was able to talk to "Radio Jack," another member who was high up on Goat, then Jack relayed the emergency call to Ivan O'Neil who was above Logan Pass below Mount Clements. Ivan got the call for help to Park officials.

There were some National Park procedures involved in this serious incident which I think need investigation and explanation; however I am not going to "give 'em hell" until representatives of our hiking group have a chance to review our notes and meet with someone in authority at Glacier.

The young people on the ground worked very hard.

The problems seem to be "Upstairs."