Angry Weber County farmer chases fox, saves kidnapped duck
Lucky the Ducky was taken by a fox on May 14, 2015, from a farm in Marriott-Slaterville. She was quickly rescued by her owner, Stacy Palen, and seemed to be recovering when this photo was taken, but died a few days later.
Lucky the Ducky was taken by a fox on May 14, 2015, from a farm in Marriott-Slaterville. She was quickly rescued by her owner, Stacy Palen, and seemed to be recovering when this photo was taken, but died a few days later.
Weber State physics professor and Ott Planetarium manager Stacy Palen gave an animated lecture Tuesday on astronomy and science as understood by the ancient Greeks. 021114 (NANCY VAN VAlKENBURG/Standard-Examiner)
Something fowl has been happening at the Marriott-Slaterville farm of Stacy Palen and John Armstrong.
“There’s a ‘fox in the henhouse.’ Someone is taking out chickens and ducks. And that someone has a fluffy tail, is about the same size as a head gate, and moves like a cat. Could be a HOUS — a housecat of unusual size. Or a fox. Or something else we haven’t thought of yet,” Palen posted on Facebook on May 13. “Time to increase the varmint patrol …”
Online friends speculated that the culprit could be a small coyote or a raccoon, but the couple discovered the truth May 14.
“It’s a fox. How do I know? Because I just f’in chased it down and stole my duck back, that’s how,” Palen posted that evening, adding that she felt like a superhero. “Hunters have got nothin’ on farmers. I’m just sayin’. I am so full of adrenaline, it’s a miracle I can sit in my chair.”
Weber State University physics professor Stacy Palen, will be one of several faculty members to speak at WSU’s TEDx event, to be recorded Feb. 28 and shared internationally. (Courtesy Photo)
Palen and Armstrong, who are both professors with Weber State University’s physics department, were eating dinner when they heard a commotion outside.
“Our dog alerted us to the fact that something was going on outside,” Palen said. “As we got outside, we saw something disappearing through the fence at the back of the property.”
They counted seven ducks, which meant one was missing.
“I said, ‘If it’s carrying a duck, it can’t have gotten too far,’ ” Palen recalls telling her husband before she ran after the fox. “John was looking after me like ‘That’s ridiculous — you’re never going to get it back.’ “
But Palen soon realized that magpies were chasing the fox, and “dive-bombing” it as it ran through the brush. As she considered the merits of following the animal into the thorny bushes, the magpies shifted a little to the east indicating that it had left the brush and gone under a fence. She hurried along an irrigation ditch and confronted the thief.
“I ran around a big pile of dirt, and it was definitely a fox,” she said. “It whipped around with the duck in its mouth, looked at me, and dropped the duck.”
The fox ran away, and Palen picked up the duck — which was still alive — and headed back to the farm.
Armstrong was surprised that she had recovered the duck, and even more surprised when he heard how she did it.
“I said, ‘Well, the magpies told me where it was,” and he looked at me like I was insane,” she remembers.
Palen did what she could to help the duck.
“She had two wounds about the size of a dime on her shoulders, where the skin was torn and you could see muscle through it, and one wound on her chest that was a little smaller and more like a puncture wound and less like a tear,” Palen said.
The next morning, she optimistically posted that “Lucky the ducky” was holding her own and may recover.
“We have not yet caught the fox,” she added. “But I bet it’s pretty hungry … good.”
On May 17, she posted a photo of Lucky the Ducky swimming in a tub of water. The following day she wrote “Lucky continues to perk up, spending a little more time in the splash tub each day. … The wound on her chest is closing nicely, but the ones on her shoulders will take longer.”
Unfortunately, the duck’s luck ran out, and it died a little while later.
Over the past few weeks, Palen and Armstrong have lost almost half of their flock to the fox. They put out a trap after the last incident, but haven’t seen the fox since.
According to Phil Douglass, conservation outreach manager for northern Utah for the Division of Wildlife Resources, Palen and Armstrong will have to be more lucky than their duck to catch a fox.
“If you do set a live trap, and put things in there that would attract a fox, you’re also likely to attract neighborhood cats,” he said — or a raccoon, which is what was caught the first night they put the trap out.
If they catch a fox in the trap, Douglass says the couple can call the DWR to take care of it.
He also recommends that people who raise chickens and ducks check out a resource from the DRW, Utah State University and Hogle Zoo, called “Wild Aware Utah.”
“We want people to be tolerant, and enjoy the wildlife around us,” he said, instead of having conflicts with it.
The website, at www.wildawareutah.org/, includes tips for making property unattractive to unwanted wildlife, such as not leaving pet food outside, installing motion lights and turning sprinklers on to scare unwanted animals away.
“The solution to this situation is for owners of chickens to make a better chicken coop,” Douglass said.
Some people put their chickens in a safe enclosure at night, he said, and others make their fencing more secure by cementing it below ground to make it difficult for foxes to break through.
“They will dig, but they will only dig until they get discouraged,” he said.
Douglass says he doesn’t have any data to confirm or deny a growing fox population in the area, but they may be expanding their range and finding new territory.
“As long as there are chickens and foxes, there will be foxes getting into chicken coops,” he said. “Foxes are predators, and see them as an easy food source.”
And as long as foxes steal chickens and ducks, magpies may be nearby.
“There is no honor among thieves,” Douglass said, explaining that the birds were probably trying to steal the duck from the fox. “You see that often among predators. … it’s competition for an easy meal.”
Palen said she was furious with that fox, and will try to stop it from stealing more of her fowl, but she doesn’t blame it for following its instincts.
“Everybody thinks chicken is tasty,” she said. “We’re not the only ones.”
Contact reporter Becky Wright at 801-625-4274 or bwright@standard.net. Follow her on Twitter at @ReporterBWright.
