Hair-raising screams heard in Maryland woods are not what they seem, experts say
“Unsettling” noises echoing from the woods of Maryland are not screaming children, state biologists explained Wednesday in a Facebook post.
They’re likely “vixen calls,” attributed to mating red foxes, according to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
“Have you heard any strange noises outside lately? Or, have you recently seen foxes during the day?” the department wrote.
“The red fox is quite vocal during mating season with females letting out a cry known as the vixen call. To some, this call sounds much like a young child screaming and can be quite unsettling.”
A report by The Wildlife Trusts says people typically hear the “pained cry in the dead of night” and it is “often answered by the ‘hup-hup-hup’ bark of the dog fox.”
“Vixen calls” have long been linked to myths and urban folklore, because the sound “will chill your blood,” National Geographic reports. Some have even attributed the screams to Bigfoot, the legendary ape-man some claim roams the state’s forests, according to a Skeptoid.com.
“The red fox (Vulpes vulpes) has a call like Jack the Ripper is roaming the streets. The screams of this wild city-dweller can seem disturbingly human,” National Geographic wrote 2018.
More than 100 commenters have responded to the state’s Facebook post, including a woman who admits she mistook the screams for a panther.
“If you do not know what you are hearing, it can freak you out for sure,” Francine Chrusniak said on the state’s Facebook page.
“The first time I heard the ‘vixen’s call,’ it woke me out of a dead sleep and scared me to death,” Autumn Sonne posted.
“We had a pair fighting in our front yard,” wrote Ashley Williams Earle. “They were calling back and forth across the street and making so much noise. We couldn’t get out the door to go to the bus stop.”
This story was originally published February 6, 2020 at 11:19 AM with the headline "Hair-raising screams heard in Maryland woods are not what they seem, experts say."