Stumpy the fox
Ever since the cold snap of three weeks ago, the Zealand Valley has hosted a second permanent resident to keep the caretakers' company: Stumpy, the three-legged red fox (vulpes fulva).
In the past couple of summers, Stumpy has denned in the vicinity of Mizpah Springs Hut, where the hut crew identified and named him. Foxes typically stay within a two-mile radius of their dens, but they will often wander further away, particularly in the winter. (so says the Peterson Mammals field guide). Stumpy's sojurn from Mizpah to Zealand, across Crawford Notch and Route 302, was approximately 8 miles.
Stumpy, like most foxes, is most active at night and early in the morning. Unlike most foxes, he is very accustomed to being around people- a characteristic that is not to his advantage. I suspect that some high school students we had at the hut last weekend might have been feeding him before I returned to the hut for the evening. Feeding wild animals is contrary to basic backcountry ethics for the good reason that it dulls the animal's necessary survival instincts. Besides that, it's a rather contrived way to "interact" with wild nature.
Nevertheless, I'm happy to have Stumpy around: I'd heard almost no mice around the hut this past week, and I suspect that our newly resident predator might deserve some thanks.
What I'm reading now:
The Interrupted Forest: A History of Maine's Wildlands by Neil Rolde
Maine's northern forest is the largest uninhabited woodland in the lower 48 states, a remarkably expansive blank spot on the map full of rivers, lakes, mountains, and wildlife. It is also a privately-owned wildland, one that provides the raw materials for Maine's vital forest products industry. In the past ten years, forestry regulations, globalization, and increasing pressure for second-home development have combined to threaten the viability of the forestry industry, and with it, the de facto conservation of the northern forest.
Rolde presents the recent political and economic issues in the context of a very broad geologic and anthropologic history. The context may be too broad, as a narrative thread is sometimes hard to piece out from the scattershot of facts presented. But Rolde is also a former state legislator, and his presentation of recent history at least is certainly worth reading.
In the past couple of summers, Stumpy has denned in the vicinity of Mizpah Springs Hut, where the hut crew identified and named him. Foxes typically stay within a two-mile radius of their dens, but they will often wander further away, particularly in the winter. (so says the Peterson Mammals field guide). Stumpy's sojurn from Mizpah to Zealand, across Crawford Notch and Route 302, was approximately 8 miles.
Stumpy, like most foxes, is most active at night and early in the morning. Unlike most foxes, he is very accustomed to being around people- a characteristic that is not to his advantage. I suspect that some high school students we had at the hut last weekend might have been feeding him before I returned to the hut for the evening. Feeding wild animals is contrary to basic backcountry ethics for the good reason that it dulls the animal's necessary survival instincts. Besides that, it's a rather contrived way to "interact" with wild nature.
Nevertheless, I'm happy to have Stumpy around: I'd heard almost no mice around the hut this past week, and I suspect that our newly resident predator might deserve some thanks.
 Stumpy's tracks, on the Zealand Trail. Note how the prints are grouped in triplets. |  An able-bodied fox's tracks, for comparison. As a fox trots along, its hind feet generally land in the prints left behind by the front feet, so that it leaves behind a fairly straight row of evenly-spaced tracks. Cats, wild and otherwise, leave prints like this as well. |
What I'm reading now:
The Interrupted Forest: A History of Maine's Wildlands by Neil Rolde
Maine's northern forest is the largest uninhabited woodland in the lower 48 states, a remarkably expansive blank spot on the map full of rivers, lakes, mountains, and wildlife. It is also a privately-owned wildland, one that provides the raw materials for Maine's vital forest products industry. In the past ten years, forestry regulations, globalization, and increasing pressure for second-home development have combined to threaten the viability of the forestry industry, and with it, the de facto conservation of the northern forest.
Rolde presents the recent political and economic issues in the context of a very broad geologic and anthropologic history. The context may be too broad, as a narrative thread is sometimes hard to piece out from the scattershot of facts presented. But Rolde is also a former state legislator, and his presentation of recent history at least is certainly worth reading.
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