Melanie Mezzatesta felt elation and joy as she watched a fox run into the brush on Saturday morning in Amherstview.
The same fox had been close to death on Bath Road in Loyalist Township just two months earlier, but Mezzatesta saved him.
“You could see that he couldn’t get up. He would lift his head and then just collapse again,” she said.
He had been hit by a car and was seriously injured, as Mezzatesta observed.
So, she took immediate action.
“I pulled my car around, started signaling vehicles to slow down, and without even thinking, I grabbed him by the neck and placed him on my passenger seat,” she said. “I called Sandy Pines and informed them that I was on my way with an injured fox.”
It was an instinctive response for Mezzatesta, who volunteers at Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre in Napanee.
The staff at Sandy Pines discovered that the fox’s jaw was broken in three places, which was a costly injury to treat. However, with the support of the community, the center was able to perform a special, non-invasive surgery to repair the fox’s jaw.
During the recovery, Sandy Pines medical director Leah Birmingham mentioned that the fox was quite a handful.
“He was chewing on things in the enclosure and consequently damaging the dental acrylic,” she said, referring to the compound holding the fox’s jaw together.
Birmingham explained that the fox experienced severe anxiety during the recovery and needed medication to prevent self-harm.
On Saturday, after approximately eight weeks of recovery, the fox was finally able to return home.
The Sandy Pines staff managed to capture the fox in his enclosure, and Mezzatesta drove him back to where they had first met.
Both she and Dr. Andrew Winterborn, who performed the surgery on the fox’s jaw, felt relieved to see him finally set free.
“I’m extremely proud of everyone involved,” Mezzatesta said.
Winterborn expressed his happiness at seeing the fox return to its natural habitat. “It brings a huge smile to my face to see an animal that belongs in the wild back where it belongs.”
