Yes, you can have a pet fox

Thanks to the hard work of a Soviet geneticist and a few fox enthusiasts, says Dan Nosowitz at Popular Science, domesticated foxes exist

With a little bit of time and effort, a domesticated fox will be your cuddle buddy.
(Image credit: Thinkstock/Stockbyte)

In the age of the internet, a simple YouTube search calls up tons of videos featuring "tame" versions of just about any relatively small animal, says Dan Nosowitz at Popular Science. "When the internet sees a video of a red panda, the internet wants a red panda. Even though a red panda is endangered and a wild animal," says Nosowitz. Humans have long sought to domesticate animals — it's one of the three traits (along with tool use and symbolic behavior such as art and rituals) most associated with our species. And lucky for those hell-bent on bringing an adorably fluffy fox into their living rooms, acquiring a domesticated fox is actually quite possible, as long as you're dedicated to caring for a rather unconventional pet. Nosowitz outlines the history of fox domestication, gives a thorough overview of its legality, and speaks to some colorful personalities in his Popular Science piece:

In 1959, a Soviet geneticist named Dmitry K. Belyaev began somewhat secretively experimenting with breeding domesticated foxes. More than five decades, thousands of foxes, and one collapse of the Soviet Union later, the program continues at The Institute of Cytology and Genetics at Novosibirsk, Siberia. Belyaev wanted to unlock the secrets of domestication, the links between behavior and breeding and physical traits, but plenty of non-scientists are aware of the project for a different reason: foxes are adorable, and we want to hug them, and we want them to like it.

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Samantha Rollins

Samantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.