Late animal rescue YouTuber Mikayla Raines’ mom, Sandi Raines, spoke exclusively to Us Weekly about her late daughter’s final days, how online bullying affected her and her family’s plans to keep her fox rescue running.
Sandi explained that Mikayla loved animals since she was young and always had a special connection with them. Sandi said Mikayla had a bunch of animals growing up.
“She just adored animals … and there are just so many occasions where … I mean, there was a wild deer in our side yard [when she was younger], she was talking to [it], and [its] ears were going up and stood right there while she walked up to it,” Sandi told Us on Friday, June 27. “I just knew from [then].”
Sandi explained, “I became a wildlife rehab worker for the state of Minnesota, so she grew up bottle feeding every kind of animal you can [name] – from squirrels to foxes to just [about] everything. [I think] she was … about 15 when we got a wild fox.”
She added, “And I mean it was a little fox. It had to be bottle fed and [Mikayla] bottle fed that wild fox.”
Mikayla Raines Courtesy of Mikayla Raines/Instagram
Sandi added, “[Mikayla] got that little fox to potty on a potty pattern — oh my gosh, she just loved that fox.”
She told Us that she Mikayla wanted to keep the fox, but even at her young age, she understood the goal of wildlife recovery was to eventually release the animals.
She said although Mikayla released the fox, it kept coming back. “We would let it out at night and it would come back about an hour later and scratch on the door and go on the potty pad and then leave again.”
Sandi told Us that she realized Mikayla was put on earth by God to help his creatures.
“I thought [she] would be here a little longer, but her mental issues were … They started when she was just very, very young,” Sandi explained.
Sandi said her daughter suffered from depression, anxiety and was diagnosed with autism.
During the conversation, Sandi said her daughter’s mental health issues made it hard for her to make friends. She said kids often picked on her daughter.
She told Us that Mikalya’s husband, Ethan Frankamp, planned to keep her fox rescue sanctuary alive. She explained that her daughter had recently rescued 500 foxes and rehomed 400 of them. Sandi said Mikayla was focused on finding homes for the remaining 100 in her final days.
Mikayla Raines Courtesy of Mikayla Raines/Instagram
“She was just beating herself up that she couldn’t find homes for the last hundred; it wasn’t quite fast enough. She was still finding them, but not as fast as she found the other ones. She was beating herself up about that,” she explained.
Sandi said Mikayla also faced intense bullying online, which started about four years ago on Reddit and Tumblr.
She said the harassment intensified after the old posts were reposted a couple of weeks before Mikayla’s death. Sandi said the recent bullying was what “broke her” and that it “put her over the edge.”
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Sandi said her daughter found out some of the posts were made by one of the other sanctuaries that she had actually been helping, and she considered that person a friend of hers, that’s when it really started wearing on her.
She said it put her on edge “a couple nights before she was at my house” and asked her mom why her supposed friends were saying false things online.
Sandi said her daughter never cared about the online fame and only wanted to save animals.
Mikayla Raines Courtesy of Mikayla Raines/Instagram
She told Us that the people were making “complete lies” online about Mikalya. She said they falsely claimed her daughter was an animal hoarder and claimed she should not have any animals.
Sandi said they claimed her daughter was killing off animals. She told Us that Mikayla did have online supporters who defended her against the claims.
She said she knew the identities of some of the people, but the others were unknown.
Sandi said Mikayla had made attempts to take her life in the past and had been hospitalized numerous times: “Nobody could ever figure out the right medication — either it made her so tired she could hardly move or it would make her so full of anxiety.”
She told Us that the celebration of life will take place on July 12 at the rescue. More information on about tickets to the event are available on SaveAFox’s website and social media.
As Us previously reported, on June 23, Mikayla’s husband, Ethan, announced the tragic news of Mikayla’s death at 29 years old via a YouTube video.
Popular fox rescue YouTuber Mikayla Raines’ husband, Ethan Frankamp, is documenting the sweet way he is honoring her following her death. Raines was the founder of the Minnesota-based SaveAFox Rescue animal sanctuary, which had amassed over 2 million YouTube subscribers and 500,000 followers on Instagram. Late Tuesday, June 24, Frankamp shared a video via the […]
He told followers of the SaveAFox Rescue that Mikayla had been dealing with false claims about her being spread online, including attacks from rival sanctuaries.
Ethan said Mikayla was “sensitive” and “took it all to heart.” He said that she had autism and also suffered from depression and borderline personality disorder.
He told followers that his wife “ended her life” a couple of days before his announcement.
“She couldn’t bear what she was feeling any longer, and she ended her life,” Ethan said. “It breaks my heart that someone who is selfless and devoted her life to animals could have so much negativity pointed at her.”
Ethan and Mikayla shared a daughter, Freya.