A red fox that crossed the Atlantic Ocean as a stowaway on a cargo ship and was found at the Port of New York and New Jersey in February is healthy, out of quarantine and has been given a name: Basil.<\/p>\n
The Bronx Zoo took the 2-year-old English fox into its care earlier this year<\/a> after he was secured by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the end of his journey from Southampton, England. The zoo announced Friday<\/a> that Basil, which rhymes with \u201cdazzle,\u201d was treated for a dangerous parasite known as \u201cFrench heartworm\u201d and has a clean bill of health.<\/p>\n French heartworm infects the lungs\u2019 blood vessels in wild canids and can cause severe respiratory disease if untreated, according to zoo officials. Basil took three different medications to help clear the parasite, and the zoo said his coat has grown fuller and shinier. He\u2019s also gained some weight, and currently clocks in at 13.7 pounds.<\/p>\n Foxes sometimes get a reputation for being skittish, but Basil is more sociable, said Keith Lovett, vice president and director of animal programs at the Bronx Zoo.<\/p>\n \u201cHe must have been comfortable around the docks, around people,\u201d Lovett said. \u201c\u200aHe’s done really well here, and staff has really bonded well with him during the quarantine period.\u201d<\/p>\n At the moment, \u200aBasil is hanging out \u201cbehind the scenes\u201d at the zoo, the vice president said. Staff are debating the best \u201cforever\u201d home for the fox.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ll be making that decision over the next few weeks,\u201d Lovett said.<\/p>\n Zoo officials said this was an unusual case of a stowaway animal, though they regularly work with government agencies and others to help rescue illegally trafficked wildlife.<\/p>\n \u201cTo have a fox stowaway on a ship, it’s pretty rare,\u201d Lovett said. \u201cWe deal with the illegal side of things, where people are illegally bringing animals into the country, and that’s what we predominantly deal with. \u2026 But in this case, the fox took it upon himself to get on the ship.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A red fox that crossed the Atlantic Ocean as a stowaway on a cargo ship and was found…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-240802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}