Portland residents Richard Melling and his wife were out for a morning walk across the Sellwood Bridge on Wednesday when they encountered a surprising sight: a small, pure-white animal that left them questioning what they had just seen.
The mysterious creature, spotted on the west side of the bridge, was unlike anything they'd seen before.
"It definitely looked wild, and it looked like a puppy," said Melling, 64, in an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive. "It was like a very, very happy puppy," he added, describing how the animal gleefully pounced on an abandoned plastic bag blowing in the wind.
Despite its playful behavior, Melling quickly realized that this snow-white creature wasn't a dog.
The couple stopped about 40 feet away, allowing Melling to capture the scene on video, which he later shared with local media. Biologists from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) analyzed the footage and confirmed that the animal was a fox—but identifying the exact species has left experts scratching their heads.
Beth Quillian, the West Region public information officer for the ODFW, spoke to Newsweek about the strange sighting. "The animal spotted in Portland last week does look like some kind of fox. White morphs are more common in red foxes than gray foxes, but the ears and snout are atypical for a red fox," Quillian said.
"This animal looks closer to an Arctic fox than any fox native to our area. It is potentially some kind of hybrid animal that escaped from captivity, though we can't rule out the possibility that it could be a wild leucistic gray fox either."
Arctic foxes are not native to Oregon. In fact, in North America, they're only found in Alaska and Canada, according to the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). In the winter, Arctic foxes have a long white coat that sheds to short, gray to bluish-brown fur for the summer.
They're usually around three feet in length, and weigh approximately 12 pounds. The CBD lists the species' favorite habitats as tundra, coastal areas, ice floes and north of the trees line, making its possible appearance on a railway bridge in Portland all the more perplexing.
The possibility of an escaped pet or a hybrid fox has been raised, but wildlife officials remain cautious in drawing any conclusions.
At this point, the ODFW continues to investigate, with no additional information available. Whether the fox is an exotic escapee or a rare local anomaly, its presence has certainly stirred curiosity among both Portland residents and wildlife experts alike.
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