Camera identifies neighborhood newspaper thieves as foxes

July 25 (UPI) -- A North Carolina man who found his neighbors' missing newspapers in his yard set up a camera to catch the culprits -- a trio of foxes.

James Eubanks, whose neighbors in Winston-Salem had been complaining of missing newspapers, said he checked his yard Monday and found 10 ripped-up copies of the Winston-Salem Journal along with nine partially-shredded phone books.

Eubanks, who said mysterious newspapers had been showing up in his yard for some time, set up a camera that finally identified the thieves as three foxes.

"It clearly shows him with a newspaper," Eubanks told WSOC-TV. "I had no idea we were going to find foxes."

He said the foxes apparently find the papers amusing.

"I really had trouble believing it at first," Eubanks told the Winston-Salem Journal. "They steal them and play with them. They drag the papers around and throw them up in the air."

Eubanks said the foxes don't appear to be using the newspapers to make nests.

"Since its newspapers, it must be Fox News," he quipped to WGHB-TV.