Photo courtesy of bscrittersitterblogspot

tanka
Annette Marie Hyder

fox fashionista —
can such a thing really be?
vixen shoe fetish?

what does one pair with sly ears?
look in her den and you'll see



Stunning collection

For more than a year, a thief in Föhren, Germany has been going around stealing shoes from resident's doorsteps and garden terraces at night. The culprit has finally been discovered — and she's a fox.

She has been dubbed "Imelda", with an Imelda Marcos-size shoe collection amassed and snugly arranged in her nest.

SPIEGEL ONLINE International reports:

The bushy-tailed culprit, believed to be a vixen with a family of cubs, is still at large, and locals have two explanations for her kleptomania. Either she amassed them as toys for her children, or she simply likes collecting shoes, or both. So far 120 stolen shoes have been retrieved.

"She's clearly got a thing about shoes," Rudolf Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt, the local count who lives in Föhren Palace, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "We found 86 shoes in the den and a further 32 in a nearby quarry where they like to play. That includes 12 or 13 matching pairs of shoes."

"The shoes may well be intended as toys for the cubs because there are bite marks made by little teeth on the shoelaces," he continued. "It's impressive that she found the time to steal them in addition to getting food."

Count von Kesselstatt had the retrieved shoes laid out in the palace on Wednesday so that the townsfolk can come and collect them.