Bill Could Allow Montanans To Own Pet Foxes

Each legislative session, literally hundreds of bills are introduced. Some effect a lot of people, some just a few. And this year at least one bill is being brought at the request of a single person. It would make it legal to own a fox as a pet.

At first, we thought that this bill was trying to open the door to commercial fox fur farming in the state. A couple of years ago, there was controversy about a bobcat fur farm in eastern Montana. Well were wrong.

"It would basically make it a little easier for someone to have a pet fox," says Columbus Republican Forrest Mandeville, who drafted the bill.

It turns out that it is, in fact, legal to run a commercial fox fur farm in the state, but it is illegal to own a fox as a pet under the state’s rabies control act. Mandeville’s bill would make an exception for captively bred and raised foxes.

"It doesn’t have to do with going out and grabbing wild animals and sticking them in your house. It’s foxes that are basically born and bred as pets," he says.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim says that while there’s always a danger that domestic foxes could breed with their wild counterparts, the risk is probably low.

"I’d assume they’d be relatively controlled. I don’t think that they’d be free-ranging but I’m not sure what people that want a fox as a pet for would have in mind," Aasheim says.

Foxes are legal pets in a handful of other states. Mandeville says he first heard about the issue from a constituent.

"I had a gentleman call me that lives in my district and my understanding is that he has a son who has a pet fox that he acquired in another state and wanted the ability to be able to move back to Montana," he says.

The bill was referred to the Agriculture committee last Wednesday.