Newspaper carriers outfox fox

People don’t like it when they go out in the morning and their daily newspaper is missing. Usually it means someone from the newspaper has to come out to deliver again. But when Arkansas Democrat Gazette newspapers started disappearing from Owen, Hilton, and other nearby streets, residents were perplexed. Who would want so many copies of the same newspaper?

Sally Sterkel, who lives on Hilton between Singleton and Pine, said she didn’t get her newspaper for three days in a row and the next day, she noticed the paper outer sleeve was kind of slick. “The carrier left me a note that she was putting Vick’s VapoRub™ on the paper sleeve to repel foxes that were taking the newspapers,” Sterkel said.

Sterkel hasn’t seen foxes in her neighborhood for years, but isn’t up the time of night when newspapers are delivered and when the foxes are more active in her area.

Arkansas Democrat Gazette newspaper carriers Joy Salazar and her mother, Virginia Litchford, said they suspected foxes were stealing the papers because they would see them hanging around where the newspapers later ended up missing.

“We did at first wonder why people were taking the papers in such a large area,” Litchford said. “The funny thing was the papers were all missing within a two-to-three block area all in Eureka Springs.

Were the foxes catching up on world news or reading the funny papers? No, Litchford suspects they were using it to pad their den. “Someone found where a fox was making a nest and there were newspapers there,” Litchford said.

At first they were at a loss at first about what to do about it. Salazar came up with the idea of putting some Vick’s VapoRub on the plastic sleeve of the newspaper to repel the foxes. Salazar had used Vick’s successfully to keep her cats from clawing her furniture.

The carriers, who share two routes in Eureka Springs, sent a letter to customers telling them for the next six nights they would be putting Vick’s on their newspaper sleeves to dissuade the foxes from taking newspapers.

“We hope does this not cause you any problems,” they said in their note.

Litchford thinks they have been successful in deterring the foxes. One of their customers reported picking up the paper a few feet from where it was thrown by the newspaper carrier. The fox apparently picked up the paper, found it distasteful, and dropped it a few feet away.

“People thought it was kind of funny we put Vick’s salve on it, but it worked,” Litchford said. “The foxes aren’t bothering the papers anymore. We hope that we have that curbed now. We have understanding customers. They have been really nice about it. We really appreciate the cooperation of our customers.”

Litchford said she and her daughter enjoy the newspaper routes.

“We get out every night,” she said. “We enjoy it. Sometimes the police pull us over wondering why we are out that time of night. It is an interesting occupation, I tell you. We see the foxes all over Eureka. They are almost like a little stray dog. Last night we saw a deer so close we could have put our hand out and touched it. They are just that tame. We also see raccoons, possums and armadillos. We usually work from 12:30 a.m. to 3 a.m. We are just country girls and we love seeing the animals. You have to remember wildlife was in this country before people were.”

Other residents can attest to the fact that there is a dense population of foxes in town. Gwen Bennett, who lives on Hillside, said in her 30 years living in Eureka Springs, she has never before heard so many foxes barking and carrying on.

“And I’ve even seen them walking around in broad daylight unafraid,” she said.

Bennett and her neighbors see the foxes frequently. Sometimes a fox will sit in the middle of the road and look at the browsing deer. One of Bennett’s neighbors has taken a lot of closeups of the fox, as well as the family of deer that can usually be found nearby.

One family of foxes even has a den underneath a rock outcropping in the neighborhood.