Police charge owner of fox wearing skeleton costume

The fox might have escaped notice, except for the costume it was wearing. It was a skeleton costume, but after all, Sunday was Halloween. On Sunday, Fairfax County police animal control officers seized the fox, named "Swiper," from its owner, Alayna Sitterson. Police said on Monday that Sitterson, 20, of the Herndon area, was charged with unlawful possession of wildlife after she was seen walking the fox about 10:30 a.m. on Sunday at Reston Town Center.

The police said Swiper would be held at the county's animal shelter until it was determined whether Virginia's wildlife agency would issue what the police said was a required special permit. In an interview on Monday night, Sitterson said Swiper had just been returned to her. "I'm holding him," she said by telephone.

When she went to the shelter to pick him up, she said, Swiper ran to the door of his cage "and started wagging his tail." A spokeswoman for the county police said Swiper had been released, adding that more detailed discussions with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries cleared the way for Swiper's return.

Legal details were not immediately available, but Sitterson said she was certain that her ownership of Swiper, which she described as a silver cross fox, was completely lawful. Foxes, she said, have always been her favourite animals. When she decided this year to get one, she said, she "did it within the law." She said she got Swiper from a breeder in another state and has raised him since he was seven weeks old.

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