Neighborhood On Alert For Fox On Prowl

By JIM KEVLIN : COOPERSTOWN
Twelve-year-old Bella Carrascoso’s hand-made sign taped to a tree in front of her home says it all:
“WARNING:  There has been a fox siting many times on Susquehanna Avenue between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 14.  So if you have cats, small dogs, or small pets, keep your eye on them and watch them carefully. You don’t want your pet to be lunch on the fox’s menu.”
Underneath is the lettering:  “R.I.P Jake.  We are sorry we couldn’t get you in time.”
Jake, explained Bella’s mother Monica, is one of her daughters’ pet guinea pigs – Bella has two sisters, Anneliese, 15, and Torrey, 9 – who were put out on the front porch last summer in an enclosed pen, along with two bunnies, Spencer and Bubblegum.
The mother heard one of the bunnies thumping and when she looked out, saw a fox looking at the pen.  Jake was gone.
So when a fox – a big one, about the size of Miley, the family’s small-to-middling dog – began showing up a couple of weeks ago, the Carrascosos began to worry again.
Last spring, Sue Streek, upper Main Street, raised the alarm with the Village Board after she saw her cat, a Persian, being carried off in a fox’s teeth near Nelson Avenue. 
About the same time, several foxes were spotted in the village, and it turned out a burgeoning coyote population in the hills around Cooperstown had forced the foxes into the village. 
Foxes born within earshot of human beings feel quite at home in civilization, and appeared quite tame, even brazen, as they strolled around the neighborhoods.
In the winter, the foxes hibernate.  But it appears they are back.
Doreen Dinicola, the graphic artist and CGP instructor, put up signs at Price Chopper the other day reporting that her cat, Pussycat, had disappeared, and she feared the worst.
“It’s a real concern,” said Dinicola, who also lives on Susquehanna, a few doors down from the Carrascosos.
A week later, one of her students saw a cat at Susquehanna and Chestnut, it turned out to be Pussycat, and mistress and pet were reunited.
Still, Dinicola says it’s likely the fox, which neighbors all along the street have reported seeing, spooked her pet, scaring it away.
“I’m surprised we haven’t got a village animal control office,” she observed.