Complaints over raw meat left outside for foxes

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. - Wildlife in a Toco Hills neighborhood is giving neighbors some trouble. Some residents say they are frustrated with some of their neighbors for leaving out raw meat for the area foxes. While intentions might be good, a local wildlife rescue group says that's not the way to help.

"Wildlife needs to stay away from people to have the best chance to survive and to have the best chance for people to people to not be bothered by it," says Scott Lange the executive director of AWARE Wildlife Center.

Toco Hills neighbors took to social media to ask people to stop feeding the foxes. Pictures posted shows raw ground beef left on the streets for the wildlife. People we spoke to say they've called a number of agencies for help. Each of them say there's nothing they can do but talk to the people leaving out food and water.

"It's hard to tell them how to interact with their neighbors but definitely the message we would send to people who are well intentioned in leaving the food out is that its actually bad for the foxes to feed them," says Lange. He says AWARE only gets involved when native animals are injured or orphaned. All the foxes they have on site will be taken care of until they are fit to be set free back in the wild. Back on the not so wild streets of Toco Hills, neighbors here say these foxes picked up a cat not too long ago, but that's not their typical meal.

"They just walk straight down the street basically like they're not scared or then they pick up a squirrel or a chipmunk then they just pick it up and walk back up the street," says Taso Costarives who lives in the neighborhood.

Lange and other experts we spoke to say cat catching is not a fox norm. But, feeding these animals keeps them in our neighborhoods looking for food. Sometimes, they'll just take what they can get. Once again, this is not typical behavior. Experts we spoke to say this might just be a couple of individual foxes acting alone and that most foxes do not going around hunting domestic cats.

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