Some good Samaritans were walking by a storm sewer recently when they noticed what looked like a litter of tiny black newborn puppies inside it. Not seeing a mother around anywhere, the good Samaritans decided to call the Colorado Springs Fire Department to come rescue the puppies. They had no idea that this was the beginning of a huge mistake!

Firefighters showed up at the scene and prepared for an animal retrieval, not realizing that they had already made the same mistake as the Good Samaritans had. One firefighter put on gloves and reached into the sewer to begin pulling out the eight puppies from the bottom of the cylinder.

Since the mother of the puppies still had not returned, the firefighters decided to transport the litter to the local animal shelter. Once the puppies arrived and were examined by a veterinarian, however, the mistake that had been made was finally revealed.

The veterinarian explained that this was not a litter of puppies at all and that they were instead red fox kits. In the video below this story, Travis Sauder with Colorado Parks and Wildlife that it’s common for mother foxes to deliver their babies in containers like a sewer.

If anyone ever stumbles upon a litter of fox kits like the ones that were in this sewer, they should leave them alone and not do anything. The firefighters immediately rushed the baby foxes back to the sewer in the hopes of reuniting them with their mother.

Officials are monitoring them to see if their mother returns to raise them. If she does not, the fox kits will be transported to a wildlife rehabilitation specialist where they will be raised then eventually returned to the wild.

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