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Turns Out, There's Money to be Made in Fox Urine

January 26, 2010 - LOVELL -- Maybe I've lived in Maine too long, but it just didn't strike me as odd that a guy who lives in Portland had some fox urine lying about.

I am not condoning the actions of Jome Murphy, a 36-year-old contractor who made the news last week when he sprayed fox urine on a police officer and protestors demonstrating outside the Front Room, a restaurant located in Murphy's apartment building.

Murphy was promptly arrested and charged with seven counts of assault. That's fair enough. What he did was rude.

But does owning fox urine make him weird?

I don't know. For me, it only raised the question: Why don't I have any?

In fact, why does anyone in Maine have fox urine? So I went to the experts. And as it turns out, there are a whole host of good reasons.

Let's start with the business of Leg Up. And I'm not even kidding.

Leg Up Enterprises is the real deal — a bustling Maine business, and quite possibly the biggest seller of fox urine nationwide.

Owner Bill Graham in Lovell said fox urine is used in hunting as a cover scent. With more than 150,000 licensed hunters in Maine, that means there is definitely a market for fox urine.

But there's more.

Graham said it's also used to train hunting dogs to find decoys. It's used to keep rodents and small mammals out of small spaces. And if you're a camper or own an RV, you may have a bottle of fox urine in your future.

"Some people use it as a repellent to keep deer and raccoons away from their home and garage," Graham said. "And we sell quite a bit of it to the truck trade. Where they store their trucks a lot, rodents get up and eat the wiring. It causes damage in the thousands of dollars. It's not only destructive, it's really dangerous."

Fox urine is also a staple among the rich and famous in America. Next time you're watching Sergio Garcia or Phil Mickelson battle it out on the greens, you may have fox urine to thank.

Graham said he sells it to golf clubs on the PGA tour because it's effective in preventing raccoons from eating the television lines on the ground.

With so much demand, you're probably wondering how Graham keeps his product flowing in, so to speak.

"I have 10 suppliers. They run the gamut from zoos to rehabilitation farms and people who keep foxes as pets," Graham said. "It's pure. It's pretty hard to duplicate the smell. When you open a bottle, you better be outside."

The fact is, there are probably more folks in Maine that own fox urine than you think.

Southern Maine biologist Judy Camuso said she hears of people using it as a repellent to keep rodents and small mammals outside.

Maine mammal group leader Wally Jakubas in Bangor, who attended a national conference in Colorado on animal damage control, said he's heard that such pungent repellents work.

Still, Jakubas is a skeptic.

"I've heard anecdotally that it works. But they say if you get a cat, the mice smell the cat and stay out. And I've had a cat, and it doesn't work," he said.

A look beyond Maine shows fox urine sales on Amazon.com have garnered good reviews, like these winners:

"Problem: Groundhogs. Solution: Deceptively trick them into believing that the crawl space under your deck is actually an overutilized fox urinal."

Or this offering from a user who said it made them feel rather foxy:

"Buy it, wear it, live it. You won't be sorry."

Admittedly, some fox urine fans are probably a little weird. But it seems worth trying.

And clearly, the folks laughing at Murphy don't have squirrels in their attic, chipmunks flying around their garage, or mice camping in their crawl space.

These resident critters go back generations in my farmhouse, no doubt. Their lineage is rooted in Maine. They were here first. I am from away.

Still I plan to outfox them.

DEIRDRE FLEMING, Portland Press Herald, January 24, 2010


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Regions: Sebago


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