POTOMAC, Md. — In some of Washington’s tonier suburbs, residents were left baffled by the sudden disappearance of shoes left on doorsteps outside of homes. Were thieves plaguing the neighborhood?
Instead, security cameras revealed the cause is a bizarre animal behavior that's rampant during the season when foxes are raising their young.
Sajan Mohammed of Potomac struck a nerve when he posted video to YouTube and commented on NextDoor about a fox caught snatching his wife's sandals from the front of their home on Democracy Boulevard. Three pairs of sandals disappeared before the Mohammed family figured it out.
"I thought it was a very smart fox," Mohammed said, laughing.
Mohammed's video sparked a flood of comments from people with similar stories, and the videos to back it up.
It turns out, shoe stealing by foxes is a common behavior that has made headlines worldwide in cases where hundreds of shoes have disappeared.
The behavior is rooted in play and teaching young foxes to hunt, explains Margaret Innes, the Assistant General Curator at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore.
"If they have young kits that they are teaching to hunt, they are going to bring objects back," Innes said.
When foxes can't come up with a live rodent, they will often improvise, Innes said.
"A nice stinky shoe, especially if it's leather," Innes started, "is going to be an interesting item to them."