Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, known for its majestic mountain vistas and rich flora and fauna, has recently added another distinction of sorts: A wily fox there has been surreptitiously relieving campers of their shoes.
“Wanted for grand theft footwear,” the National Park Service announced with a poster featuring an illustration of a fox gripping a sneaker in its teeth. “Crimes: Stealing left shoes (they taste better), flip-flops and campers’ pride.”
The whimsical wanted poster, which branded the fox the Sneaker Snatcher, the Midnight Mismatcher and Swiper the Fox, was part of the park’s initial effort to warn campers that parkgoers’ shoes had been vanishing.
An accompanying poster stapled to a pole near the Lizard Creek Campground tallied 19 stolen pieces of footwear and suggested that the culprit was still on the prowl: “0 days since last fox/shoe incident.”
But last week, as the tally of purloined footwear rose to 32, Grand Teton posted a video to Instagram scolding campers for intentionally leaving out their footwear as offerings for the thieving fox — “just in case he visits.”
In the video — set to audio of a scene from the 2008 animated movie “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” — a would-be camper leaves a pair of hiking boots outside a tent and the Sneaker Snatcher, played by a stuffed and mounted fox, thanks them for the sacrifice.
But eventually the offerings are too much.
“I think I’ve had ENOUGH is that clear?!?!” says the fox, surrounded by a heap of hiking boots and sandals.
“Don’t bait wildlife with belongings,” a caption on the video reads, noting that it is dangerous for the wild animal to become acclimated to humans.
National Park Service officials at Grand Teton National Park did not immediately respond on Thursday to questions about the cunning thief. But the video posted to Instagram quickly captured the attention of the public.
In the comments on Instagram, the park’s account noted that while it had used a lighthearted video to draw the public’s attention, the message was serious. “Feeding or encouraging wildlife (even unintentionally) can put animals at risk,” the comment read.
Foxes are intelligent, playful creatures — a lot like dogs, which helps make sense of the attraction to footwear, Kristin Combs, the executive director of Wyoming Wildlife Advocates, said in an interview.
But creatures in remote parts of Grand Teton should be uneasy around humans, leaving it unclear how this fox developed its obsession.
“Maybe it did get a food reward somewhere along the way that was associated with a shoe and now it just thinks that shoes are going to equal food,” Ms. Combs speculated.
The shoes could also have an olfactory appeal, she guessed.
“If you think about it, most people’s shoes are probably some mixture of leather and something else — and that has a smell to it,” Ms. Combs said. “Then you add sweat into it as well, the saltiness of it.”
The fox could be stealing the shoes in order to urinate on them and position them in the woods to mark its territory, she added.
There is limited danger for people when interacting with foxes that have become habituated to humans, Ms. Combs said, though people might be bitten if they try to pet a fox that approaches them wanting food. But she said foxes in Grand Teton are not known to carry rabies or any illness that could be passed to people.
The real danger, Ms. Combs said, is to the fox. If its behavior leans toward aggression, that could cause it to be put it down.
“It is hanging around people, it’s obviously getting close enough to steal these shoes,” Ms. Combs said, “and unfortunately, that doesn’t bode well for the long-term survival of the fox.”
One commenter on the Instagram video, which has more than 18,000 likes, made a reference to Swiper, the infamous thieving fox from the children’s show “Dora the Explorer,” and suggested a solution.
“Did you try saying ‘Swiper, no swiping?” the commenter wrote.
Aishvarya Kavi works in the Washington bureau of The Times, helping to cover a variety of political and national news.
The post Beware of ‘Swiper,’ a Fox at Grand Teton Park With a Penchant for Footwear appeared first on New York Times.
