It may feel like it's already summer outside but that didn't stop a little piece of the arctic from visiting central Michigan.
After several days of sightings in and around the town of Portland, just northwest of Lansing, local authorities captured a loose arctic fox as he woke from a nap on a baseball diamond.
The fox's origin is unclear but aside from being about 1,000 miles south of its natural habitat, local law enforcement believes it must have been a domesticated pet based on its friendly demeanor, the Lansing State Journal writes.
From the LSJ's Tom Thelen:
“We were receiving calls about it for about a week,” said Portland police chief Bob Bauer. “People were seeing at in various parts of the city...We believe that it either escaped or was turned loose,” said Bauer. “It was not afraid of anyone. In fact, it would coming running out to people and some of them were scared by the way it ran up to them.”
Thelen reports that authorities found an owner of another arctic fox in nearby Lake Odessa who agreed to care for the captured animal.
-John Klein Wilson, Michigan Radio Newsroom
