Jerry Vandiver fox rescue work has quietly become one of the most concrete responses to a mange epidemic spreading through red fox populations around Nashville, Tennessee. Over seven years, Vandiver has logged thousands of volunteer hours baiting, trapping and transporting foxes to wildlife rehabilitators, one fox at a time.
Vandiver built his career as a singer-songwriter in Nashville, with songs recorded by the likes of Tim McGraw, Phil Vassar and Barbara Mandrell. He is, by any measure, a fixture of the country music scene. But it is his work with foxes that has drawn the wider public’s attention, and the numbers behind it tell a clearer story than any headline could.
A Disease That Is Treatable, If Someone Shows Up
Mange is caused by skin mites. It produces persistent irritation, hair loss, rashes and scabs, and while it is not fatal in itself, secondary infections can kill. It is also highly contagious through physical contact, meaning a single infected animal can spread the disease rapidly through a family group. In foxes, a family group is called a leash, and it can include a dominant male and female, their young, and more distant relatives sharing a territory of several square miles.
That territory is shrinking. Suburban development is pushing multiple leashes into overlapping ground, raising the risk of transmission between family groups. Ingestion of rat poison compounds the danger, as it can weaken immune systems and leave animals less able to fight off infection. Walden’s Puddle, the wildlife rehabilitation centre Vandiver works with, advises residents to avoid using poisons, to stop leaving food out for foxes, and to keep rubbish containers tightly closed. Drawing foxes towards human settlements concentrates animals and accelerates spread.
The treatment itself, once an animal is caught, is relatively straightforward. The difficulty is getting there first. ‘Mange is treatable,’ Vandiver told the Tennessean. ‘If we can catch them, they can have a healthy, happy life. I know how to do that. I can’t walk away from them when I see those pictures.’
The pictures he refers to arrive in dozens every month via Facebook. When Vandiver began posting before-and-after videos of fox rescues on his performing artist page, his follower count grew from 325 to 5,000. Concerned residents across Nashville’s suburbs now know to contact him directly when they spot a fox showing signs of mange.
Jerry Vandiver Fox Rescue: The Scale of the Problem
The numbers from this year make the scale of the epidemic plain. Walden’s Puddle rehabilitated 44 red foxes across the whole of 2025. By September, that figure had already passed 60. According to WKRN, Walden’s Puddle, one of the few certified and licensed wildlife rehabilitators in Middle Tennessee, has taken in and treated 85 foxes in total. That volume would not be possible without Vandiver doing the legwork. In August alone, he logged 234 volunteer hours catching foxes and driving them to the centre, often waking through the night to retrieve a trap and then making the journey to drop the animal off.
Vandiver monitors areas near his home with trail cameras. When footage shows a mange-stricken fox, he sets a baited trap and waits. He is 78 years old.
‘I’m not the hero, I’m just the ambulance driver,’ he told the Tennessean. A member at Walden’s Puddle put it differently, saying he puts ‘foxes before himself’, always.
Walden’s Puddle does the clinical work. Vandiver provides the reach and the reliability. Neither side of that equation functions without the other, and the gap between 44 rehabilitated foxes in a full year and 60-plus by September reflects what happens when both are in place and the community is paying attention.
After each release back into the woods, Vandiver says the fox pauses and looks back. He knows, practically, what that moment means for the animal. He prefers his own reading of it anyway.
