Nashville songwriter becomes volunteer hero for foxes hit by mange epidemic

A Nashville singer-songwriter has become a star — not for his guitar playing, but for saving the city’s red foxes.

Jerry Vandiver, 78, whose songs have been recorded by country stars like Tim McGraw, Phil Vassar and Barbara Mandrell, moonlights as a volunteer hero to the local red fox population as Tennessee suffers a serious mange epidemic.

Over the last seven years, Vandiver has logged thousands of volunteer hours baiting and trapping foxes before taking them to Walden’s Puddle Animal Rescue.

Mange, caused by skin mites, leads to persistent irritation, hair loss, rashes and scabs. It can kill foxes through secondary infections and is highly contagious through physical contact. Yet treatment is straightforward — if the animals can be caught.

“I’m not the hero, I’m just the ambulance driver,” Vandiver told The Tennessean. “Mange is treatable. If we can catch them, they can have a healthy, happy life. I know how to do that. I can’t walk away from them when I see those pictures.”

Vandiver receives dozens of messages monthly from Nashville suburban residents who know he is the man to call. He monitors areas around his house with trail cameras and will set traps if he spots a mangey fox.

His performing artist Facebook page, once used for music, now posts before-and-after videos of rescued foxes. His follower count grew from 325 to 5,000. In August alone, he logged 234 volunteer hours. Walden’s Puddle rehabilitated 44 red foxes in all of 2025 — by September this year, it has already passed 60.

The nonprofit believes habitat loss is pushing foxes closer together. A family of foxes — called a “leash” — requires several square miles. Mange can quickly spread through a leash, and suburban development forces multiple leashes to overlap, accelerating spread. Ingestion of rat poison that weakens immune systems adds to the danger.

Walden’s Puddle advises residents to avoid poisons, not to set out food, and to tightly close garbage containers to avoid drawing multiple foxes together.

A member at Walden’s Puddle said Vandiver puts “foxes before himself.” For Vandiver, the reward is the moment of release — the look back from the fox as it returns to the woods.

Though he knows it is the fox checking for threats, he likes to think it is a way of saying thank you.