Support Vader, the pet fox wrongfully euthanized

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GrandmaThunderpants's avatar
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Hello friends and fans, today I come to you with heartbreaking news. Vader was a pet fox who I followed closely in the exotic pet community and on Tumblr. His owners were Tara and Eric, and they run a blog ( maythefoxbewithyou.tumblr.com ) all about their adventures raising a fox. Vader was an incredibly sweet, friendly animal who was specifically bred to live as a companion. He wasn't a wild animal. He wagged his tail to greet people and even got along swimmingly with other dogs and lived alongside a chihuahua named Athena. This was not a vicious animal.


(photo credit)

Tara has received untold amounts of anonymous hate from social justice warriors and animal rights activists. People claiming her fox was some abomination and should be released, despite the fact that if she released Vader into the wild he would die either from starvation or from approaching the wrong humans and being mistaken as a wild animal. Recently she had gotten an anonymous threat saying someone was going to report her fox as a vicious animal. This kind of threat is common on Tumblr, believe it or not. People threatening to take away the things you love, people even threatening to take away your life all because they don't agree with you in some way. But this time it wasn't just a threat-- it actually happened. The police received an anonymous report and a photo (likely swiped right from Google Images) claiming Vader had bit them. Without looking into it, without asking any questions, they arrived at Tara's home and seized Vader. During this time, the officer who took Vader was told multiple times how to properly handle a fox, and he did not listen. He grabbed Vader in a neglectful way and was bitten because of it. The officer was wearing tactical gloves (extremely thick gloves) and as far as the owners saw, the bite did not break through the glove and there were no injuries. This was confirmed with several other officers, as far as I've seen.

The very next day an officer shows up at Tara's door and thrusts a bag into her arms. The bag has Vader's collar. Without word, without warning, without a chance to say goodbye to her pet, he was euthanized. The reason? Now it was being stated that the bite broke through the glove and the animal had to be euthanized to examine his brain for rabies.

Killed, senselessly, because someone lied just to be a piece of shit and submit that false report. Vader should have never been taken from his home. The cop should have never been in the home to corner the fox to begin with. This threat should have been looked into before they ever even knocked on Tara's door. But it wasn't. Some anonymous, faceless photo was taken as absolute truth and now an innocent animal is dead.

How is it so easy to get an animal killed? Why is it that the photo was never looked into? Why is there no system in place to reverse image search things like this and make sure it's not some common image being used as petty revenge? And why is it that the officer on duty to collect Vader did not listen to the fox's owners? They even offered to put the fox in his travel crate themselves but the officer refused and insisted on doing things improperly which resulted in the bite. This whole situation was handled neglectfully and it has unfortunately ended in tragedy.

You can find more information on what happened on her blog here: maythefoxbewithyou.tumblr.com or on the petition page linked below. There is also a Reddit thread posted by a close friend of the fox's owners that gives more details on what happened.

Nothing can bring Vader back, and nothing can take away the heartache that Vader's family is feeling right now. But you can help to make sure it doesn't happen again to another innocent animal. Please help me and many others fight back against this senseless act.

First and foremost, there is a petition in place here that appeals to the Board of Animal Health and requests that justice be brought to those who mishandled Vader's case, and to the anonymous person who filed the false report. www.change.org/en-AU/petitions…

Secondly, please spread the word about Vader and encourage those you know to read his story and sign the petition. The petition will be going to the departments who handled the case as well as the mayor of Minot, the city closest to where Vader was kept.

Though I may not have ever met Vader, he was a huge part of many people's lives through his blog. Seeing his smiling face daily brought so much comfort to so many over Tumblr. Hearing about this made me cry, and I really hate how poorly it was handled. Something must be done to make sure another animal isn't treated this way.

Finally I would like to say if you have a moment to please go give Tara and her family a kind word of support over at her blog. maythefoxbewithyou.tumblr.com Through hard times like this, a little kindness can go a long way.

Thank you for reading.

** I would like to say as a disclaimer, I am not in any way affiliated with Vader's blog or in direct contact with his owners. I am just simply a huge animal lover and a big fan of Vader's adventures. This story upset me very deeply, and so I've followed it closely. If you want to contact Tara or Eric directly, please send a message to their blog and not to me. Thank you. :)
© 2014 - 2024 GrandmaThunderpants
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