These inseparable 'goth' lesbian foxes at Minnesota sanctuary are the toast of the internet

Lesbian foxes at a Minnesota fox sanctuary are going viral and winning hearts on the internet. Esmae and Mala have conquered the internet and are the toast of the LGBTQIA+ community during Pride Month. SaveAFox is a rescue home for domestic foxes that cannot be released into the wild. Mikayla Raines is the founder of SaveAFox Rescue, located in central Minnesota, and has made it her personal mission to find homes for these amazing creatures. SaveAFox shared pictures of Esmae and Mala, who are a pair of black and white foxes, ahead of Pride Month and reminded people that homosexuality is pretty common among animal species. "It’s June 1st and that means it’s officially PRIDE month! Did you know that homosexuality is not uniquely a human trait, but has been observed in over 1000 other animal species as well?!" read a Facebook post by SaveAFox.

The post showed the pair cuddling up to each other, playing with a ball and posing next to Raines. "We even have our own pair of lesbian foxes here at SaveAFox! As many of you may know, Esmae and Mala are a bonded pair who are both female! They frequently exhibit behaviors that are reserved for only foxes who mate. Foxes are often monogamous, and Esmae and Mala are no exception, they are inseparable," the post continued. Esmae and Mala even inspired fan art.

The post went viral, garnering more than 15,000 likes and 7,900 shares. People were overjoyed at the sight of the "goth" lesbians. "As a former zookeeper, I can tell you the constructs of both gender and heteronormativity are solely of human invention. We can learn a lot from the animals. Love is love; Happy Pride," wrote Jenny Warren. The post was also a fundraiser to help foxes and raised more than $600. Scientific American backs up Raines' claim that homosexuality is common practice in the animal kingdom. If you thought it was a one-off case, you couldn't be more wrong. "Such same-sex sexual behavior can include mounting, courting through songs and other signals, genital licking or releasing sperm, and has been observed in over 1,500 animal species, from primates to sea stars, bats to damselflies, snakes to nematode worms," notes the journal. Researchers at Scientific American postulate that ancestral animal species may have mated without taking sex into consideration. Researchers believe some animals may have been yet to develop the necessary faculties to detect sexual differences so they engaged with whatever they could.

Raines' mother was a rehabilitator and served as an inspiration for her. Raines saved her first fox when she was just 15. "I was 15 when I bottle-fed and raised my first fox, a baby gray fox kit I discovered nearly drowned next to a lawn sprinkler. When I turned 18, I decided to enroll in classes that allowed me to become a licensed wildlife rehabilitator myself. I moved on to college and began school in a veterinary technician program," she writes on the SaveAFox website.

She is keen to rescue domestic foxes and find them loving homes. "Domestic foxes are unlike wild foxes in that they are born in captivity to sell as pets, as well as being bred in 'fur farms' for the sale of their pelts. Foxes born in captivity are unable to be released into the wild due to legal and ethical reasons," she said. "Many of our foxes at SaveAFox come from fur farms, as pet surrenders, or seized from their owners as the result of an illegal situation and then brought to us. Some pet surrenders come to us because people purchase a fox without understanding how extremely difficult they are to care for, while other pet foxes we receive were seized by authorities after found being kept illegally," she added.

She started SaveAFox so foxes could have a home and they have saved roughly 150 foxes from certain death. She is now solely focusing on rescuing these captive-born foxes, and other captive-born exotics. "SaveAFox also tends to their care and socialization to prepare them to live happy lives in knowledgeable forever homes. My purpose is reflected in SaveAFox’s Mission Statement: 'To rescue and provide forever homes for captive-born, non-releasable wildlife,'" she writes.