Vigorous reactions to fox’s demise rapped
The public backlash against Whitehorse airport employees who killed a fox last week is ridiculous, says the Yukon’s assistant deputy minister of transportation.
Photo by Whitehorse Star
Allan Nixon
The public backlash against Whitehorse airport employees who killed a fox last week is ridiculous, says the Yukon’s assistant deputy minister of transportation.
Allan Nixon told the Star this morning some comments found in social and mainstream media almost border on criminal, and are certainly uncalled for and distasteful.
The Erik Nielsen Whitehorse International Airport employees were doing the job they are instructed to carry out to ensure required safety standards at the airport are maintained, he said.
Nixon said the investigation into the incident so far does not raise any cause for concern nor disciplinary measures.
Last Thursday, the employees, who have not been publicly identified, were notified of a fox at the north end of the runway.
In keeping with accepted procedure, they tried to scare off the animal but it returned to the runway two or three times.
One of the employees then shot the fox with a 12-gauge shotgun from about six metres away, he said.
Nixon said the fox was immobilized but did not die immediately, and the employees drove up to the animal.
One of them decided the quickest and most humane method of killing the animal quickly was to stomp on it with enough force to break its neck, and the fox died, said the assistant deputy minister.
The workers did not try to run over the animal with their truck, as some have suggested or heard, he said.
They did not repeatedly boot the animal in the head nor abuse it in any way, as has been suggested.
They shot the fox, drove up to it, and delivered a blow to the neck area to kill it as quickly as they could, he said.
“He felt this was the quickest way to put the animal out of its pain,” Nixon said. “He made a snap decision. He did what he had to do to make sure the animal died quickly.”
These are the same employees who are out at midnight plowing runways to make sure they’re safe, or up at 5 a.m. and at work by 6 a.m. to ensure no debris has blown in, he said.
Nixon said both employees were interviewed, and their recollection of the incident fits exactly with that of two other airport employees who witnessed the incident.
Wildlife control, Nixon emphasized, is part of the job – it’s a reality at airports around the world. It’s not a part of the job anybody likes, but it’s part of the job nonetheless, he said.
“If you do not deal with it, and something happens, the consequences can be pretty serious.”
Nixon said the pilot who landed the passenger jet on New York’s Hudson River in January 2009 didn’t do it to see if the plane would float; he did it because he lost power after birds struck his engines.
The fact that the next passenger jet wasn’t due in for 45 minutes last Thursday morning isn’t relevant, he said.
Nixon said all types of aircraft are coming and going all the time, and when the fox didn’t scare off, the employees were faced with their last option.
So far this year, he said, employees have dealt with about 58 incidences involving mostly foxes but some coyotes at the airport.
Of the 58, five have been live-trapped with the assistance of conservation officers from Environment Yukon. The vast majority have been scared off with air horns, bear bangers and truck horns, he said.
Nixon said six foxes and one coyote have been shot.
Part of the problem is that people are feeding the animals. When they become habituated, they hang around longer, lose their fear of people, they don’t scare off so easily, he said.
“And we have to deal with it.”
Mary VanderKop, the Yukon’s chief veterinary officer, explained this morning the examination of the dead fox showed it was shot in the chest by a shotgun, and was struck once with enough force in the front chest area to break a leg.
anonymous
Oct 18, 2012 at 3:49 pm
WHAT!!!!! First you deny that it was stomped on and then you say it was the right thing to do. If anything they could have shot it again…that would have been the right thing to do. WAIT! The right thing to do would not have been to shoot it at all!!!! UNBELIEVABLE! You are a horrible person to defend these two people.