First SUV tire deflations by environmental activists, now newspaper thefts by omnivorous mammals.
The northern Arlington neighborhood of Rock Spring was the scene of the vulpine larceny over the weekend. As seen in video surveillance footage, a furtive fox dashes down the driveway, with a stolen Sunday edition of the Washington Post firmly secured in his or her snout.
The homeowner, Lynn Pollock, tells ARLnow that the pilfered paper was later found nearby.
“The fox took our paper to a neighbor’s yard behind our house on the other side of a stream and left it in their yard,” she said, noting that such wildlife thievery is new to her but apparently not uncommon in the area.
“We had a [fox] family with kits who grew up under our front porch for five years until we renovated last year. We never saw this activity then,” she said. “However, from responses to my [Nextdoor] post it is clear that newspapers, shoes, baseball mitts as well as dog toys are taken by foxes in the area quite often.”
On the social networking site, neighbors weighed in on the incident.
“The only piece of fox news I have enjoyed is this post,” quipped one local resident.
“Swiper, no swiping!” wrote another, referencing the sneaky antagonist on Dora the Explorer.
Jokes aside, another resident tried to provide a possible explanation for the behavior.
“In all seriousness, that newspaper has only one purpose for that fox and its kit(s),” the resident wrote, before word that the paper was found and recovered. “She will take it to the den and shred it, and it will make amazing, warm bedding material with great absorption, much like dried leaves. She’s done it before, and she knows what works. She was probably taught to do it by her mother. There’s a reason for the expression, ‘sly as a fox!'”
Video courtesy Lynn Pollock