🔺  Fox gets stranded on a floating dock

🔺  Rescuers lost track of the fox

🔺  Fox shows up days later and is expected to make a recovery

 

It was in 1976 that one of the saddest songs ever released made its way onto the charts.

The song about a dog named Shannon contained the lyrics,

Shannon is gone I heard
She's drifting out to sea
She always loved to swim away
Maybe she'll find an island
With a shaded tree
Just like the one in our backyard

This past weekend in Seaside Park, people were watching as a fox named Ziggy, trapped on a floating dock that broke away from land was drifting out to the treacherous bay.

As the story made its way around social media, the community came together to try to figure out how to save the fox.

The Seaside Park Volunteer Fire Department responded with a team of rescue swimmers, who launched a couple of jet skis and a boat from the bay front to try to rescue the fox.

Credit: Seaside Park Fire Dept.
Credit: Seaside Park Fire Dept.
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However, the rescue efforts were hampered by the ice in the bay that was too thin for rescuers to slide across and strong currents.

With the dock floating further away from land, the situation was complicated because the scared fox would run onto the ice as rescuers approached.

Then rescuers lost sight of the fox.

A drone team from USAR used a thermal scan in an attempt to find the fox, but the fox was nowhere to be found.

By Monday, word started spreading on social media that Ziggy was presumed dead.

Then on Tuesday, like a scene out of a movie, Ziggy was found.

He had ice on his tail and was very thin, but Ziggy was alive.

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He is currently being treated by Dr Raicer at Bayshore Veterinary Hospital where he received antibiotics and pain meds.

The plan is for him to be taken to Cooper's Fox Den sometime Thursday.

Sources say they are cautiously optimistic the fox will make a full recovery.

This story had a happy ending, but experts warn of the dangers of well-meaning people trying to save wild animals.

It is always best to call an animal rescue expert.

Animals will strike out when scared, and people can find themselves in a dangerous situation if they don't have the proper expertise.

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