Shrewsbury Residents Cautious Of New Neighbors - A Family Of Foxes

SHREWSBURY (CBS) - An alarming encounter with a fox has a neighborhood in Shrewsbury a bit nervous.

The fox, which occasionally shrieks loudly at night, has made regular appearances over the last week.

Dave Maas and Christine Emmi believe they have seen this same fox frequently during the day as well.

"It's not fisher cat noise, but it's unearthly," Maas told WBZ-TV. "It was almost like a child screaming," Emmi said.

One of the neighbors took a photograph of a vixen, that's the mother fox, nursing its kits, the babies, in her yard.

They're worried because the fox's den is in a shared compost area bordering their back yards.

"I bring the dog over and the fox doesn't budge. She opens one eye and watches us," Maas said.

"It's out hunting, probably at night. But we do see it during the day, so that does make us a little wary of it," said Emmi.

So if you see a fox during day, is it a sign that the fox is rabid?

"That is a myth," Marion Larson of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife told WBZ. "There are people that are concerned because they heard about a fox attack in Burlington."

In that case, three people were bitten, the fox was killed and was later found to have rabies.

So when does a fox look rabid?

"If the fox or other animal is stumbling around, looking really lethargic, running nose, eyes. It looks sick," Larson said.

As for the foxes in Shrewsbury, Larson says as long as they appear to be healthy, neighbors can continue to watch them. But they shouldn't approach them or feed them.

To learn more about foxes, visit the MassWildlife web site.