“Humans tend to take and take and take with no regard for what’s down the line.”

-"Stars in the Sky: A Hunting Story"

I had never seen a silver fox before last month and definitely did not expect to see one on the trip we took to the islands off the coast of northern Washington. But there she was, sauntering across a busy road directly up to our parked car, maintaining eye contact with me the whole way as I sat in the passenger seat with my door open. God, those eyes. Those golden-amber eyes glowing against the charcoal smudge of her salt-and-pepper fur. My brain short-circuited. I was mesmerized. I wasn’t clocking that she was still in the road, that she was approaching because she smelled the half-eaten burrito I held in my hand. I was stupefied, quite literally, for a few intense moments of shock and awe.

Earlier that afternoon we had spent a few hours wandering the bluffs along the edge of the island, keeping an eye out for foxes— we knew it was baby fox season so sightings were possible. We pulled over here and there to amble along cliffside trails bursting with bright California poppies and marveled at the low-soaring Bald Eagles casting feathered shadows across our path. We had the trails almost entirely to ourselves and enjoyed the solace as the sun set over the sea.

Eventually we made our way further down the road and noticed a line of vans parked alongside a copse of maples. We pulled over behind them thinking it must be a popular trail but once we started walking across the bluff we saw a small group of people standing about 10-20 feet away from a tiny opening at the base of the shrubbery. Most people in the group were holding large cameras the size of small human babies. We quickly realized they were gathered to stake out the baby foxes, which one person confirmed by telling us he had been there 4 hours the previous night and had disappointingly only caught a brief glimpse of one kit.

At first the moment felt reverent: a group of eager folks huddled together in quiet anticipation as the wind ruffled the grassy fringe of the bluff.

But this wasn’t reverence. I only wanted it to be.

This was hunger, anticipation, expectation. Expectation with a catch: if you foxes don’t show yourselves, I will be disappointed. I will be annoyed. I will do what I can get away with to force you out so I can feast my eyes, my camera, my existence upon you.

One man even posted up a mere two feet away from a second entrance to the den, sitting on a low collapsible stool within arm’s reach of a fox should one dare to venture out that way. What was he hoping to get out of that? Standing among that crowd somehow felt like something I didn’t want to be part of. I was there to see foxes too, yes. But I wasn’t there to impose myself on them, to force my way close to their home, to sit there for hours focusing on just one spot when there was a whole island of potentially wonderful wildlife encounters to happen upon, foxes or not.

Overwhelmed by that experience we drove away toward our hotel when my partner decided to pull over to try to get photos of some Vesper sparrows flit around on the low branches of a blooming Hawthorne tree. I stayed behind in the car eating dinner with my door open for fresh air. Burrito in one hand and phone in the other, I was looking across the road into an inland meadow at a couple of deer grazing on clumps of tender lupine leaves. While watching them through my zoomed-in phone screen iInoticed a dark shape moving closer–another deer? Once the figure cleared the tall grass and stepped out on to the road I froze: a fox. Not just any fox either–a silver fox. (Silver foxes are morphs of the common Red Fox, and they are quite rare).

I was quickly snapped back to reality when several cars, one right after another, drove within a few feet of the fox and quickly pulled over in front of our car. Out came the child-sized cameras from the massive luxury vans. And once again I felt that sinking sense of imposition, like I was part of a power dynamic neither I–nor the fox–had fully consented to.My partner found himself surrounded by these photographers. He said they were excitedly snapping photos, high-fiving each other, and talking about how cool it is to get such great shots of this animal. This animal, standing in the road, begging for food. This animal, wild by all other definitions, behaving in a decidedly domesticated way. This animal, failed by humans, lured by the promise of food just so they could see them and “get the shot”.  He snapped this photo before returning to the car and driving us back to our hotel for the night. The lingering light of day held a quiet grief.

Don’t we all deserve to appreciate the beauty and wonder of wildlife? My take is this: yes, beauty and wonder makes this life profoundly worth living. But at what cost? Cultivating the patience to enter into a relationship with the natural world is one of the most fulfilling, and admittedly frustrating, relationships you can be in. Like all relationships it requires stamina, an open mind, and the willingness to let go of expectations. To let the connection play out organically. Maybe the fox shows up, maybe she is busy tending to her young, maybe she is off hunting. Maybe she’s hiding in fear because a group of photographers with questionable ethics have discovered her den and cornered her in it.

I don’t believe most of these people had bad intentions. But people can both love animals and be ignorant to how to care for them, and over the course of those four days I saw an excitement for the natural world coupled with an unquestioned willingness to control it.

So much of this experience gave me the same sickened sense that experiencing misogyny does: “You are here for me. You are here to be objectified, belittled, dismissed, controlled, shamed. Your body is a resource, a commodity.”

I can relate to this fox. I believe all women can relate to this fox.

The heart of the matter is that other beings do not exist for our pleasure. They don’t exist to be exploited, used, then discarded once the allure fades.

What a shame it is to be part of a species who expects that wildlife respect them without giving wildlife that same respect in return. We take, we extract, we demand. And for what? For photos. For a story. There is no pride in a beautiful photo if it was taken with disrespect and entitlement. To orchestrate an encounter by baiting, trapping, or cornering wildlife cheapens the experience for you and leaves the animals we claim to love incredibly vulnerable to harm.

So how do we balance consumption and care?

We don’t live in a world where humans as a whole can simply enjoy the wild without participating in harm on some level, whether directly or indirectly. Is me using this animal in a portrait exploitative? I’m raising awareness, sure, but she’s still out there left to fend for herself against unsafe humans while I’m safe at home waxing poetic about her plight to my small community of nature-loving folks.

Either way, it’s important to talk about these things. To lend a voice to those who can not speak. To educate one another about how to be good humans and responsible environmental stewards. To live with integrity and to experience our world in a way that we can be proud of. I find so many moments of love, awe, and joy when I encounter wildlife, but I never expected it. Knowing I'm not owed these moments makes them all the more special when they happen.

The truth is, we can do so much fucking better when it comes to how disposable we see and treat our wild kin.

Thanks for reading. Oh, and we did end up seeing baby foxes after all. Funnily enough, we saw two of them romping around behind their mom along the side of the road just a couple dozen yards away from where all the photographers were gathered, their backs turned to us. We didn’t say a word about it to them and didn’t even get photos. Here’s hoping those tiny babies can live out their best fox lives unbothered on that beautiful island.

Thanks for sticking around. Ethical wildlife viewing and animal rights are important issues close to my heart and I hope sharing stories like this can help us teach one another how to be better stewards of our environment and better, happier humans as a result.

Jenn