
Fox 'coated in bitumen' walks after four weeks at Essex hospital
Bitumen is made from crude oil and is mostly used as a binder in roads.At the time of the rescue, the hospital said the fox's plight was "one of the most horrific cases we've seen in the 35-plus years of wildlife rescue".It took several days and many bottles of baby oil and WD-40 to clean the tar-like substance from its fur.
However, after a great deal of care and an operation, the hospital posted on its Facebook page and said the fox was on the mend."It's been four weeks since the surgery to fix his leg (after all the work needed to remove the bitumen from his fur) and we're delighted to say that everything seems to be healing perfectly," it wrote."He is now so confident on the leg that he can run around his pen without any sign of a limp."They added that while it had taken a lot of work to nurse him back to health, "he now has a bright future ahead of him". "He still needs to recover from some muscle loss, but we are very confident that he will be 100% fixed very soon," they said.When the cub is deemed ready, it will be released back into the wild.
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