By Pete Bannan | Pbannan@Mainlinemedianews.com | The Delaware County Daily Times
A Boothwyn dog rescue organization is spearheading the rescue of Broomall fox suffering from a drainage pipe stuck around it's neck.
Colleen Bell, founder of The Good Boy Dog Recovery, said the fox was seen earlier this week by a woman in the Broomall section of Marple Township.
The fox has a black accordion type drainage tube stuck around its neck. The witness posted on social media asking if anyone was able to help get it off. While a number of organizations expressed concern, none were able to intercede, and they contacted Bell.
Jumping into action, Bell and her crew responded, set up surveillance and are working with The Wilderz at Pocono Wildlife, a Pocono wildlife rehabilitation center, to humanly trap and then transport the fox to that facility for it to be removed.
Janine Tancredi, executive director of The Wilderz, said her organization has been successful at freeing wildlife caught in manmade objects, such as the drain pipe.
Tancredi said the fox, when it is safely caught, would most like be transported to their facility and placed under anesthesia, and then after determining whether the tube was metal or plastic, having it safely removed.
Her team has taken jars and plastic rings off the head of animals as well as from their legs. She said they once removed a plastic pumpkin from the head of a deer and are currently working with the game commission to locate a deer with a plastic pumpkin on it's antlers.
Tancredi said many of the problems stem from not cleaning up construction sites or properly disposing of trash and recycling.
She also praised the concern residents had about wildlife that is being pushed into developed areas in her area of the state.
"It shows communities coming together but would love people going a little bit further and taking care of their trash to minimize things like this from happening," Tancredi said.
For the fox in Broomall, Bell said they are setting humane traps, have cameras monitoring the area and are prepared to spend the nights waiting for it to approach the trap. They are using female fox urine since either sex will be curious to that smell. They are uncertain of the sex of the fox.
After the pipe is removed and the animal is healthy, it will be returned to its territory.
On Thursday morning there were two sightings of the fox near Dorman Avenue not far from Media Line Road. Bell noted foxes are mostly seen out from sundown to sunrise but you will occasionally see them in the day.
Bell founded The Good Boy Dog Recovery in February 2023 after years of recovering dogs that owners and municipal authorities could not find or catch.
She has been doing the work for the past 15 years but reached the point in 2023 that it was costing too much, so she started the nonprofit.
It specializes in lost and or stray dogs that no one else can find.
Working with her brother Brian Bell and cousin Alan Boates and other volunteers, they have become adept at surveilling for a lost dog, staying out all night sometimes and either creating a humane trap or coaxing it back.
She has purchased and learned to fly a thermal drone.
"You can see a rabbit at 400 feet in the dark," she said.
Bell said many of the dogs wander off or run away, and then their leash gets tangled around a tree or they fall into ravines they would starve if not found. She noted when a dog is outside for a while it goes into survival mode, and may even run from its owners so they coax a dog to come back.
"I really just taught myself and became an expert in the field." Bell said. "They are now contacted regularly by animal control for dogs that they cannot be caught."
Recently they recovered a three-legged Australian cattle dog that had fallen into a basement of an abandoned house in Chester. That rescue got the attention of the DoDo website.
Bell said she has always had dog of her own but she was driven to the work when seeing a man whose father was suffering dementia let his pug, named Lily, run out the front door and it never came back.
"I've been able to bring so many dogs home that would have died," she said.
Unfortunately they weren't able to find Lily but it started Bell on the road to helping many more.