Man Sees Fox Trying to Cross Road With Heavy Traffic, Knows What He Has to Do

An urban fox trying to cross a busy road was helped by a passing animal lover, as seen in a viral social media video.

Lawyer Paul Powlesland, 38, lives in London, where a large number of foxes call the urban landscape home. But heavy traffic and other human interference can make life difficult for foxes, as a viral video recorded by Powlesland shows.

On X, previously Twitter, Powlesland posted a clip of a fox standing on the sidewalk as vehicles, including buses and emergency services, drove by. Powlesland captioned the video: "Just found an urban fox trying to cross the road in Barking but clearly scared by heavy traffic.

"I pressed the pedestrian crossing button for them & they then crossed over effortlessly to continue with their evening of foxy activities. Maybe we need beg buttons for wildlife too?"

The video shows traffic clearing as the pedestrian light turns green, and the previously jumpy fox strides across the quiet road and on its way. After Powlesland posted it on May 9, the video received 10,000 likes in a matter of hours.

Speaking to Newsweek, Powlesland said: "I was on my way back from the supermarket, and I saw this fox hanging around the road and realized it couldn't cross because of the amount of traffic that was going by. So I pressed the pedestrian button and then waited, and that's when I took the film that you can see."

He added: "Those lights have a really long wait, so it was quite a long time to spend with the fox. And as you can see, it really did want to cross the road."

"It was quite scared, which was a bit sad," Powlesland said, adding that he was "really glad to be able to help it."

While foxes are common in cities in the U.K., particularly in London and Bournemouth, they can also be found in U.S. cities and suburbs.

On its website, the Humane Society of the United States assured readers that seeing a fox in a neighborhood was "no cause for alarm." The organization added, "A fox cutting through your yard is probably just passing through on their way between hunting areas."

"Foxes are not dangerous and do not attack humans, except when they are rabid, which is very rare, or when they are captured and handled," the organization continued. "Even then, a fox's natural tendency is to flee rather than fight."

Powlesland said he saw foxes in his neighborhood often, as "they really love the riverside where I live. It's a really good habitat for them."

"Whenever I see them, I make a point of stopping and saying hello and seeing what they're up to," he said. "I find the little flash of wildness, feralness, that they bring to the city to be pretty magical."

Powlesland added, "More important than this one-off helping is to ensure our cities are places where nature and wildlife can also live alongside us."

The Lawyers for Nature founder said that before helping the fox, he had been in a meeting earlier that day with a developer building an apartment block nearby.

He said much of his work involves "ensuring that when human development happens, the needs of nature are also taken into account."

Powlesland said, "It's really possible to balance those two things and have places that humans can live and thrive, and nature can, too."

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