Luna the arctic fox spent her early days darting around Southwest Portland streets with no business being there. Nearly two years later, she's trading snowdrifts and snack time with a male arctic fox named Apollo and two black bears in a Wisconsin zoo enclosure, and according to her keepers, she's the one calling the shots.
Luna was captured in Southwest Portland in October 2024, according to OPB, though a separate account from KOIN reported she was found abandoned in Portland on Sept. 12 and sent to live at Ochsner Park Zoo in Baraboo, Wisconsin, on Nov. 14. Either way, she first landed with the Bird Alliance of Oregon, where she was treated for hunger and dehydration, per the same OPB report. Wildlife officials determined she was a juvenile arctic fox likely raised in captivity as a pet, and that she lacked the survival skills and wariness of humans needed to be released back into the wild.
That ruled out a return to the forest, so the search turned to zoos. Ochsner Park Zoo agreed to take her in, pairing Luna with its resident male arctic fox, Apollo. The Bird Alliance of Oregon provided an update on Luna's new life on Monday, and per The Oregonian/OregonLive, she's been settled in Baraboo for almost two years now, after first passing through a wildlife center and the Oregon Zoo on her way out of town.
An Unusual Roommate Situation
Luna doesn't just share her enclosure with Apollo. She also lives alongside two black bears — an adult named Taglu and a cub named Aspen, the station's report notes. Ochsner Park Zoo manager Katie Gries told The Oregonian/OregonLive that keeping foxes and bears together isn't common practice, but it isn't as wild an idea as it sounds, since black bears and foxes do live alongside each other in the wild.
Luna, Apollo, Taglu and Aspen were introduced to one another slowly, and the zoo takes deliberate steps to prevent conflict between animals that range from 15-pound foxes to a bear weighing 400 pounds. Keepers separate the animals around what the zoo calls their high-priority items — food, water and shelter — rather than letting them compete for resources side by side. The enclosure includes three separate water sources and various shelter options, plus places for each species to retreat and get some space from the others when they need it.
From Scared to Instigator
Luna was initially scared of Apollo and Taglu, the same report notes, but she's grown far more comfortable around both of them since. These days she often instigates play rather than avoiding it, and she's developed a habit of nipping Taglu on the rear to kick off a game of tag. At feeding time, the four animals are separated and given their favorite treats so nobody has to compete for a meal.
Gries described foxes generally as quick, clever and agile, and said a fox can outwit even a 400-pound bear when it wants to. That matches broader wildlife research on the species: a Nature Conservancy blog post found that foxes were more likely to linger in black-bear territory during summer, while coyotes took over those same zones in winter once bears hibernated. Trail cameras in that research captured 111 bear photos in summer and just one in winter, while coyote sightings rose as gray fox sightings fell. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire's College of Life Sciences and Agriculture have suggested black bears may actually shield gray foxes from predators like coyotes, letting the smaller carnivores coexist nearby — as one researcher put it, the bear becomes a buffer.
A Scary Diagnosis, Then Recovery
Luna's time in Wisconsin hasn't been without a health scare. Zookeepers noticed she had become lethargic and was losing her appetite, and after running multiple blood tests, veterinarians diagnosed her with salmon poisoning disease, according to KOIN's earlier reporting. The University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, which was involved in her care, called it a rare diagnosis. Follow-up tests eventually confirmed normal bloodwork and fecal results, according to the UW School of Veterinary Medicine, marking her full recovery.
These days, Luna seems to have settled into her role as the enclosure's star attraction. She loves snow, and the Bird Alliance of Oregon has described her as sneaky and smart. She often sits at the front of her habitat, drawing attention from zoo patrons who stop to watch the fox that once wandered a Portland neighborhood now holding her own against a cub and a 400-pound bear.
