National Zoo defends euthanising fox, citing ‘ongoing’ flamingo danger

The zoo officials said they had trapped a fox overnight and euthanised it

Flamingos fly over the Chaxa lagoon, in the Atacama Salar salt flats, in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile (Reuters)

Officials at the National Zoo in Washington defended the trapping and euthanising of a wild red fox last week, even as they acknowledged they couldn’t confirm it was the same one that broke in this month and killed 25 flamingos and a duck.

The massacre occurred before the zoo opened on 2 May, when the predator - believed to have come from nearby Rock Creek Park - probably entered through a baseball-size hole in the habitat’s heavy mesh fencing, zoo officials said.

A staffer arrived early in the morning and spotted the fox in the flamingos’ enclosure before it fled, leaving a gruesome scene behind, officials said.

“You’re trying to manage nature with nature, and the fox won,” said Matt Felperin, a naturalist and bird expert for the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, who called the slaying a “major debacle” for the zoo.

The zoo subsequently moved the remaining flamingos inside, and the ducks were moved to a covered, secure outdoor space. Three other flamingos were hurt and treated by the zoo’s veterinarians. Traps were set to catch the fox.

The zoo officials said they had trapped a fox overnight and euthanised it. They later said the fox, an adult male, was tested for rabies and was negative. But zoo officials said they could not confirm it was the same fox that had killed the flamingos, leaving some zoo fans and naturalists to question the decision.

Pamela Baker-Masson, a spokeswoman for the zoo, wrote in an email Wednesday that the 2 May “predator(s) displayed ‘surplus killing’ behavior,” in which a predator “kills more prey than they can immediately eat, so they hide or abandon the remainder.” In this case, she said, the fox had buried its prey, so the zoo “anticipated its return.”

“When a predator successfully breaches a barrier, it demonstrates a learned behavior which will most likely be repeated and must be considered an ongoing threat,” Ms Baker-Masson wrote.

Traps for the fox, she said, were set up at the zoo afterwards. Zoo fans had questioned why officials didn’t relocate the fox upon trapping it, a course that Ms Baker-Masson said was “not a viable consideration” because of the nature of fox populations in the DC region.

Red fox populations, she said, are close to capacity in the DC region and rising because of the births of new kits this spring. Relocating the fox that was caught, Ms Baker-Masson said, “could have jeopardised his wellbeing and/or the foxes already using that home range.”

But Mr Felperin said a better solution than relocating or euthanising the fox was just to enhance security for the birds.

“I’m not a fan of retributionally killing one fox because of what one did at the zoo. There’s no reason to go out and trap and kill foxes,” he said. “It could very well be the same fox, but also it might not be.”

Officer Best with the Humane Rescue Alliance Animal Care and Control attempts to trap a fox on the grounds of the US Capitol on April 05, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)

And other predators, he noted, could still follow. “Foxes know they’re there,” Mr Felperin said. “It’s humanity at its finest.”

Flamingos have been at the zoo since the 1970s, but this month’s slaughter was the first time a fox had breached the mesh enclosure, officials said. The zoo had last replaced the metal mesh and done other upgrades to the habitat in 2017, passing “an accreditation inspection” by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, Ms Baker-Masson said.

After the incident, zoo workers did fortify the flamingos’ yard and other outdoor bird areas, putting in extra alarms as well as hot wires, which give a slight shock to predators. They also added concrete barriers to prevent digging underneath enclosures and installed more mesh and higher wood fencing in parts of the enclosures.

The zoo “takes seriously its commitment to protect and care for its animals, and in this case, the removal of the predator was necessary,” Ms Baker-Masson said. The zoo’s goal, she said, is “to coexist with the native species around us, especially because we are adjacent to Rock Creek Park.”

The incident followed another high-profile fox case in the District in early April, when a female adult fox reportedly bit nine people, including a congressman, around Capitol Hill.

The mother fox and her three kits were euthanized after she was caught on the grounds of the US Capitol and the baby foxes were found in a nearby den. According to officials from the DC Department of Health, the animals all tested positive for rabies.