June 12, 2015
José Iñesta/StockSnap.io
Zombie-like rabid fox, similar to the animal pictured here, bit a Burlington County man and then just kept coming back again and again.
Taking a stroll along a Jersey Shore boardwalk is a common summer activity. Apparently, young red foxes want to get in on the action.
Ocean City, New Jersey, restaurant owner Jim Brown told NBC10 that he has been seeing them everyday. The wild animals have been frequenting the boardwalk and mingling with people outside Brown's restaurant.
“They’re jumping up. They’re walking around your feet,” Brown said. “Bicycles are dodging them. They are wild animals and it does concern me. Eventually, something is going to happen."
Officials believe the fox pups were born just a few months ago and are venturing to the boardwalk from a nearby den.
Experts say they know of five active fox dens in Ocean City but state guidelines forbid them from moving the animals off the island.
“We can relocate them in Ocean City,” Bill Hollingsworth from the Humane Society of Ocean City told NBC10. “So we would put them in an area that doesn’t have an active den already and there’s no population around. We really need the people to stop feeding them. We want them to get back into the wild.”
There have been no reports of aggressive or rabid foxes in Ocean City in years, according to officials.
