At 78, Nashville songwriter spends hundreds of hours rescuing foxes with mange

For one Nashville songwriter, answering a call for help can mean getting out of bed in the middle of the night and heading into the woods. At 78, Jerry Vandiver has spent the past seven years volunteering to rescue red foxes suffering from mange around Nashville, Tennessee. In a report, The Tennessean detailed how the singer-songwriter traps sick foxes, transports them to Walden’s Puddle Wildlife Center of Greater Nashville and later helps return them to the wild. Vandiver logged 234 volunteer hours in August alone, while Walden’s Puddle had already rehabilitated more than 60 red foxes by early September, surpassing the 44 it treated throughout all of 2025.A growing rescue effort for Nashville’s foxesVandiver’s work begins when residents spot foxes showing signs of mange.