The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Man outfoxes neighborhood nuisance
A Lorain man claims he’s put an end to a menace that has been terrorizing his neighborhood for a month.
Morris Nibert, 87, of the 2100 block of Garfield Boulevard, said he caught a fox in a trap July 10.
Nibert said the pint-sized predator is responsible for the deaths of at least three rabbits, two squirrels and a blackbird.
He said many of his neighbors had stopped walking their small dogs for fear of the fox.
Nibert said he set the trap three days ago. The first day, he said, he caught a house cat, which he let go.
The next day, he said he caught the largest opossum he’d ever seen.
On the third day, he hit pay dirt.
Nibert said he used a cooked hot dog as bait.
The fox had three dens near his property, which Nibert had been filling with grass clippings in an effort to draw the animal out.
While Nibert has corralled one critter, he believes something larger may be prowling the block as well: a coyote.
“Last week at 4 a.m., my neighbor heard a commotion in his backyard,” Nibert said. “We thought the fox had caught a goose, with all the squealing and carrying on. But the next night as we were putting garbage out, there was a little deer carcass in his front yard.
“Whatever it was brought that carcass back and put it in his yard. I knew it was a bigger animal because I estimate this little baby deer was about 40 pounds or more.”
Nibert has lived in his home for 51 years, and he said he’s been trapping critters since he was a small child.
“When I was a kid, I had to go out and catch skunks,” he said. “I went to school one day and the teacher run me home because I had skunk juice smell on me.”
Nibert said he and his son-in-law Robert Reinhart, 58, intended to release the fox in the country after 5 p.m., July 10.
Mary Ewers, a senior naturalist with the Lorain County Metro Parks, identified the caged beast as a red fox.
Ewers said they aren’t exactly a rare sight in the county, but there isn’t an overpopulation of the animals.