Fox cubs rescued with help from soap

Problem: three curious red fox cubs with their heads stuck in a storm drain grate, their mother screaming for them from their nearby den. Solution: dishwashing detergent.

A Starkweather Road resident discovered the stranded cubs and called police. Animal Control Officer Karen Stone responded and called local firefighters for help.

The firefighters were able to pry the grate up a bit, but they had no tool to cut the thick metal. So she tried oiling their heads with Vaseline to push them back through. That didn't work. Neither did corn oil.



Finally, Stone said, she soaped the cubs heads with Dawn dishwashing detergent, and through a laborious process — the cubs straining up the wrong way, biting at her gloved hands, the mother continuing to wail — she was able to push their ears down and through the grate. The third cub, which had a larger head than the other two, was the most difficult, Stone said.

Stone placed the cubs in a dog crate in her van, drove them up near the den and released them. They scampered away towards home.

"Except for being a little soapy, I think they were OK," she said.