Mikayla Raines, who accumulated millions of followers on social media for her work in rescuing and championing foxes and other animals, died on June 20 at her home in Faribault, Minn. She was 30.
Her husband, Ethan Frankcamp, said the cause of death was suicide. He said Ms. Mikayla had struggled with mental health issues and had experienced some bullying on social media.
Ms. Raines grew up under the wing of her mother, who worked in wildlife rehabilitation. She founded Save a Fox Rescue, a nonprofit sanctuary dedicated to rescuing foxes born in captivity, in 2017. Her work had become so popular that she had 2.4 million followers on YouTube.
She rehabbed foxes and found them adoptive homes. Many were from so-called fur farms, where animals are bred for their pelts and live in tiny wire cages, unable to move about freely or sometimes even to sit up.
Other foxes she rescued were surrendered by owners who found it difficult to care for them. Still others were seized by authorities after having been kept illegally.
Ms. Raines’s organization rescued some 150 foxes from “certain death,” she wrote in an undated post on the Save a Fox website.
A 2016 article in The Pioneer Press newspaper of St. Paul, Minn., described her as a “fox whisperer.” At the time, she had a vixen named Farrah Foxxett.
She told the newspaper that she could empathize with animals. “They’re shy in crowds,” she said. “It takes them a while to get used to strangers.”
Her mother, Sandi Raines, told USA Today that in 2024 her daughter had spent roughly $1 million — raised through donations, paid tours of the sanctuary and the sale of merchandise — while working with a fur farm to rehabilitate and find homes for 400 foxes, and that she was seeking to assist another 100 foxes at her death.
“From a young age,” Mr. Frankcamp said of Ms. Raines in a tearful 12-minute video that he posted on Instagram on June 23 to to announce her death, “she dedicated every waking hour of her life to helping them, whether it was helping a snapping turtle cross the road or saving 500 foxes from a terrible fur farm. She was never in it for fame, money or personal gain.”
He also said that Ms. Raines put the animals’ well-being “over her own, time and time again. She would forgo sleep, eating and showering if there was an animal that needed her help.”
Mr. Frankcamp said in an interview that he believed Ms. Raines had succumbed to the stress of a combination of factors: the demands of operating her animal rescue sanctuary, mental health issues and negative online comments about her that “piled up.”
Without offering specifics, Mr. Frankcamp said he believed that the cyberbullying “all stems from jealousy of maybe people in the same line of work that weren’t successful with it, or weren’t able to expand.”
KJ Farms Animal Rescue, a sanctuary in South Carolina, posted on Instagram that Ms. Raines had fought for space, for help and for funding as she sought to rescue the 500 foxes from a fur farm.
“But when things got hard, judgment came quicker than support,” the post continued. “People called her impulsive. Reckless. Even other rescuers — people who should’ve stood beside her — joined the mob.”
The sanctuary added, “The rescue world cannot keep cannibalizing its own.”
Ms. Raines had been candid with her followers on social media about her experience of being on the autism spectrum, a condition that “made things difficult for her,” Mr. Frankcamp said. “It was an added layer of difficulty on top of everything else.”
In a 2024 Facebook post, she wrote, “I sometimes really get hard on myself for being in a depressive state.” She had much to be thankful for, she acknowledged, citing her family, her husband and her animal rescue business, but she added, “My mental health was the cost of it all.”
In the video Mr. Frankcamp posted on Instagram, he said that Ms. Raines also had borderline personality disorder, which resulted in emotional instability and impulsive behavior. She had tried various kinds of therapy and taken mood stabilizers and other medications, but “nothing really seemed to help,” he said.
“She was so sensitive to everything,” Mr. Frankcamp continued, “which is a double-edged sword, because on one hand, it allowed her endless empathy for those in her care, but it also means she took everything negative to heart.”
Mikayla Raines was born on March 5, 1995, in Burnsville, Minn., and grew up in nearby Lakeville, on 10 rural acres owned by her mother.
At a young age, Mikayla began attending rehabilitation classes with her mother. At 15, she bottle-fed and raised her first fox. At 18, she began taking classes to get her license as a wildlife rehabilitator, which she received in 2016. She also studied in a veterinary technician program at Globe University in Minnesota, now defunct.
In addition to her original rescue center in Faribault, in southern Minnesota, she had a second facility in Groveland, Fla. She married Mr. Frankcamp, who served as a volunteer rescuer during the pandemic, in 2020.
Along with her mother and Mr. Frankcamp, Ms. Raines is survived by a 3-year-old daughter, Freya.
Through the years, Mr. Frankcamp said, Ms. Raines had rescued and rehabbed “four figures” worth of animals, including foxes, mink, raccoons, coyotes, turtles, squirrels, sheep and horses.
But the rescue business, he noted, can be stressful: Not all animals can be saved; paperwork, permits and inspections must be dealt with; and constant social media posting is necessary to raise funds.
Mr. Frankcamp, who said he planned to continue Ms. Raines’s rescue mission, pleaded for more compassionate behavior on social media.
“I just wish people would understand that every person that you see is hurting in some way,” he said. “Even though you can’t see it, everybody is going through something.”
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
Jeré Longman is a Times reporter on the Obituaries desk who writes the occasional sports-related story.
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