Last month, mechanics at a garage in Bromley, England, hoisted an electric Mustang up on a car lift for maintenance. Everything seemed routine at first, then, suddenly, five tiny balls of fur fell out of the engine compartment onto the ground.
The Fox Project
Shocked by the little creatures writhing on the floor, the Vertu Ford Bromley mechanics gently gathered the babies into a cardboard box and brought them to a local vet.
The babies turned out to be newborn foxes.
The Fox Project
Thankfully, none of the kits suffered any injuries from their 6-foot fall, but the vet team knew the kits needed expert attention. They contacted The Fox Project for help, and ambulance driver Nicki Townsend arrived.
“Newborn bones don’t break as easily as formed bones,” Townsend told The Dodo, “because they are more flexible and less mineralised, with a higher organic (collagen) content.”
The Fox Project
The cubs’ excellent health was also a testament to a mama who’d cared for them well — and was probably frantically searching for them in the car owner’s driveway.
“It’s likely [the mom] deemed it as a safe, dry place, as the car hadn’t been moved for a while,” Townsend said. “They were in what would be the engine compartment of the car — this one was electric, so simply housed the battery, meaning there was space for the vixen and cubs to nest.”
The Fox Project
The Fox Project reached out to the “incredibly caring owner” to see if their team could set up a reunion at night in his driveway, where the Mustang used to sit. They hoped Mama would still be in the area, waiting for her babies to turn up.
In a Facebook post about the fox kits, The Fox Project wrote, “We chose nightfall for the reunion and prepared for a long wait into the early hours of the morning. To our delight, within minutes of placing the cubs in a heated box on the drive, the mother vixen appeared.”
The Fox Project
The team held their breath as the mother delicately picked up each of her babies, one by one, and moved them from the box to a new den she must’ve made nearby.
Within 10 minutes, all of the babies were safe. Townsend was overjoyed.
“To have the cubs exactly where they should be, with their mother,” Townsend said, “there’s no better outcome.”
If you would like to support The Fox Project, you can donate to their work through their website.
