We are sorry to share that our Gray Fox, Dylan, passed away this morning, Wednesday, May 27th. 

Dylan was diagnosed with a rare condition called chylothorax during a routine senior health workup this past February. This condition, which is challenging to medically manage, causes fluid to build up in the chest cavity, making breathing progressively more difficult as the disease progresses. Our veterinary and wildlife teams have been carefully monitoring Dylan’s health and behavior since February to ensure he was still maintaining the benchmarks of a good quality of life. Unfortunately, over the past few weeks, the team noticed signs of decline in his overall wellbeing, and made the decision to humanely euthanize him to prevent unnecessary suffering.

Dylan was found unconscious, and brought to the California Wildlife Center in Calabasas, north of Los Angeles. Following x-rays, they realized he had multiple fractures in his left back leg that they believe became displaced due to seizures he experienced in the early stages of his recovery. Due to the resulting damage in his back left leg and his habituation to humans during his medical care, he was unable to be released back to the wild.     

Dylan arrived at CuriOdyssey when he was six months old. He was selected for the Ambassador Animal Program because of his young age and habituation to humans. Like most wild parent-raised gray foxes, Dylan was naturally shy, but always stayed in close proximity to the animal keepers. He was a very fast learner, and over time was trained to wear a harness for presentations. 

However, Dylan wasn’t comfortable staying in a crate for transport to education programs, or with the sounds of the other ambassador animals moving around, and we felt that ambassador animal programs would cause him undue stress. It was for that reason that we shifted Dylan from the Ambassador Animal population to the Exhibit Animal Population. We were quite surprised, based on his aversion to unexpected sounds, how quickly Dylan acclimated to being on exhibit. Since that time he has been an incredible ambassador for the Gray Fox species, and a deeply beloved part of CuriOdyssey. 

Although he washed out of our ambassador Animal program, he was so cooperative with his husbandry and medical training. When keepers would place his food on the window sill he was more than willing to come right up and show off his balancing skills even if the window was lined with children on the other side. The keepers would help Dylan to show off his leaping and agility skill during Animal In Action programming and help our visitors understand the unique climbing abilities that Gray Foxes have.

The injuries of his youth meant that Dylan loved to spend most of his final years snuggling adorably in his bed up high in his enclosure, which had a heating pad to help his arthritis, but he could still often be found pawing through enrichment materials for snacks. He was especially beloved of our campers–often our new camp staff would learn Dylan’s name when many campers would show up the first day of camp clamoring to see their favorite fox Dylan. We will all miss him dearly.