site.btaFox Visits Sofia’s Slatina District

A fox was photographed on Shipchenski Prohod Blvd. in the capital's Slatina district. "A fox in the centre of Sofia", "moves as if in a hurry for shopping" and "Slatina is my London" are just some of the comments under the post of district mayor Georgi Iliev on Facebook, titled "Winter. A fox on Shipchenski Prohod". Iliev confirmed to BTA the authenticity of the photos posted on his Facebook profile. The photos were taken by Vladimir Zahariev.

Apparently, when it gets cold, foxes come down from the mountains to look for food. For other big cities, it is part of their routine, the mayor of the metropolitan area said, adding that according to the comments under his post, foxes are apparently a normal sight in London. Iliev added that there were photographs from the 1950s showing wild animals - deer and stags in the area by the TV Tower. 

Wild animals in our part of Sofia may not be unusual given the area's proximity to Vitosha, the mayor said. 

Alexander Dutsov, senior expert on species conservation at WWF, commented for BTA on the problem of wildlife conservation in urban environments. 

It appears that there is no team in Bulgaria to take care of wild animals caught in urban environments. There are also no guarantees that if a fox is caught and returned to the wild, it will not come back afterwards, as it is already used to the easier food source provided by humans, Dutsov said.

The NGO has been contacted elsewhere about moving a fox from an urban to a forest environment. “We have already had several such cases. It turned out that there is no institution in Bulgaria that deals with wild animals in urban environments. Hunters just want to shoot them, but they have no such right in populated areas. The law only allows the police to use firearms in populated areas. The species is not protected and therefore the Regional Inspectorate for Environment and Water has no relation to it,” Dutsov explained.

“On one occasion, we found a fox in a deplorable condition in the Dragalevtsi district. We managed to catch it with a snare and took it to the Sofia Zoo, which is the only unit registered as a rescue centre. There is actually an isolator where a wild animal found in an urban environment can be quarantined,” the expert said.

He pointed out that foxes are predators. They are dangerous because they can carry rabies. If it carries rabies, the fox will behave inadequately - it will hide, bite, hiss. His advice to people who encounter a fox in an urban environment is not to feed it, not to pet it. If given food by hand, it will surely get more used to people and become like a pet. It is possible that it has come down from the mountains because it is already used to the tourists on Vitosha, the expert said. He pointed out that social networks and forums are full of pictures of foxes standing next to the huts and eating the leftovers of tourists' food. This is how the wild animal gets used to humans. 

The expert assumed that the fox in Slatina was attracted, besides the easy food, by the presence of gardens and parks. Most likely, it was just very hungry and looking for alternatives, Dutsov pointed out.  

Apart from the Slatina area, foxes have also been spotted by ecologists in the South Park area and in the outlying districts of the city. It's not unusual for foxes to come down from the woods in the city. In small settlements, people spot them because they bother the animals they keep, the expert said.