The day-to-day life of a fishermen involves much repetition and hard work. The job is incredibly different than what most of us do for a living, especially as we’re mostly working from the comfort of our own homes at the minute during lockdown.
However, with hard work comes reward, and when fishermen in Canada spotted a rare Arctic fox who was in desperate need of their help, it was a truly special moment for all of them. Their amazing experience only intensified when they were able to save the fox’s life, and they managed to document their story with a video along the way.
The Arctic fox was spotted by fishermen Mallory Harrigan, Cliff Russell, and Allan Russell, who were working aboard a crab-fishing boat a few miles off the shore from Labrador, Canada.
The fox was sitting atop a mushroom-shaped iceberg that was drifting through the sea, and at first, the fishermen guessed that was the vulnerable animal was a baby seal. It was only when they went to take a closer look that they discovered that it was actually a terrified and starving Arctic fox.
This sad story shows the direct impact that Global Warming is having on our world.
The iceberg had broken off from the mainland and carried the fox along with it- leaving him stranded in the middle of the ocean. As Arctic Foxes aren’t able to swim, he had already been stranded for quite some time and was wet through and under attack from circling seagulls.
He was incredibly vulnerable and needed urgent help.
“It had probably got stuck out there looking for a meal,” Mallory Harrigan told Bored Panda. “Cliff says he thinks he got out there to check out a bit of meat on the ice and it broke apart, sending the cute fox out to sea.”
Mallory and her crew-mates wasted no time in creating a rescue mission to save the fox.
They carefully steered their boat toward the iceberg and attempted to coax the terrified animal on board. But it’s incredibly uncommon for Arctic Foxes to be sighted by humans, and the scared little guy had probably never seen a human before in his life.
He was understandable wary, but the crew wasn’t giving in that easy. They knew that the responsibility of saving the fox was purely theirs, as the winds had changed and were driving all the ice farther out to sea.
“He was trying to run away from us at first, so we had a tough time getting him aboard,” Mallory recalled. “We had to break the ice he was on and get him with the dip net. He fought and fought to get away until he literally couldn’t move anymore.”
Finally, the crew succeeded in getting the fox on board, where they quickly made a makeshift bed to keep him warm.
In contrast to the freezing cold iceberg, the bed must have felt like a complete luxury. The fox was apparently too weak to do much more than retreat to a corner when he was brought onto the boat, and he slept most of the way home.
Mallory and her team fed him chips and crackers — which he wasn’t too sure about. But after his nap, he devoured a whole tin of Vienna sausages.
With a belly full of sausage, the fox soon perked up, and once back on dry land the fishermen decided that he was well enough to be released back into his habitat.
Since then, Mallory reports that she still sees him every now and then- but we bet he’s staying far away from the water these days! Watch the breathtaking video of the fox’s return to dry land below.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
