Story of observation in southern Tunisia, on the lookout until dawn.
The sun has just disappeared behind the dunes and the desert is changing people. Lying behind a ridge of sand, the observer adjusts his telescope: somewhere under this expanse, a family of fennec foxes is waiting for the cool air to come out.
Two a.m., two ears
The hours pass. Around two in the morning, two huge ears emerge from the burrow. The fennec listens to the desert - this is how it hunts, locating by sound the insects and rodents that circulate under the sand.
These ears, the largest of all canines relative to body size, also serve to evacuate heat. They explain part of the fennec fox's success where almost no other carnivore can: it hears its prey and cools itself with the same organ.
All that will remain of him are star prints around the burrow, and the certainty of having approached one of the most discreet animals in Tunisia.
Observe without disturbing
Until dawn, the little silhouette will come and go between the tufts of esparto, indifferent to its spectator. The rule is simple: stay downwind, never light the burrow, and leave nothing behind.
The fennec fox is not threatened throughout its range, but it remains captured for the pet trade. In Tunisia, the species is protected: observing it from afar is the only correct way to encounter it.
