Fennec Fox - As Pets

As Pets

The fennec fox is bred commercially as an exotic house pet. Breeders tend to remove the young kits from the mother to hand-rear, as owners prefer tamer and more handleable foxes, thereby making them more expensive.

The species is classified a "Small wild/exotic canid" by the United States Department of Agriculture, along with the coyote, dingo, jackal, and arctic fox, and is considered the only species of fox, other than the domesticated silver fox, which can properly be kept as a pet. Although it cannot be considered domesticated, it can be kept in a domestic setting similar to dogs or cats. A breeders' registry has been set up in the USA to avoid any problems associated with inbreeding. The legality of owning a fennec fox varies by jurisdiction, as with many exotic pets.

The French aviator and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry made a reference, in a letter written to his sister Didi from Cape Juby in 1918, to his raising a fennec that he adored. Saint-Exupéry also mentioned encountering a fennec when wandering in the Sahara after his plane crashed there in 1935. The fennecs he had known in these two contexts are considered to have inspired the fox character in Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince.