Red Fox

About the Red Fox

The Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) is the most widely distributed wild carnivore on Earth, thriving from Arctic tundra to city centres. It is instantly recognisable by its rusty coat, white-tipped brush and dark stockings — though urban foxes are often mangier, leggier and bolder than their countryside cousins.

Foxes have followed humans into every kind of landscape we have built. In London alone, an estimated 15,000 foxes now share the streets with 9 million people, feeding on scraps, worms and small mammals in gardens and parks.

Habitat & range

Red Foxes are one of the most adaptable mammals in the world. They live in mixed woodland, farmland, sand dunes, moorland, suburbs and dense city centres. What they need is a dry earth or dense cover for a den, and any reasonable food supply within a few kilometres.

Urban foxes usually den under garden sheds, in overgrown railway cuttings, or in disused burrows. Their territories are much smaller in cities (0.2–0.4 km²) than in the countryside (up to 40 km²).

Diet

Foxes are true opportunists. Their diet is roughly one-third small mammals (voles, mice, rabbits), one-third invertebrates and windfall fruit, and one-third scavenged food — including a growing share of human waste in cities.

They cache surplus food, burying kills or scraps for later, and can remember dozens of cache locations for weeks.

Behaviour & life cycle

Foxes are mostly crepuscular, hunting at dawn and dusk, but urban foxes shift more of their activity into the deep night. They live in small family groups: a breeding pair plus one or two grown daughters that help raise the next litter.

Cubs are born blind in March–April, emerge from the den at about four weeks, and stay with the family until the autumn dispersal. The famous 'fox scream' heard on winter nights is usually the female's mating call.

Main threats

Despite being of Least Concern globally, Red Foxes face routine culling, road mortality (the biggest killer in the UK — an estimated 100,000 foxes are hit by cars each year), and sarcoptic mange, which can wipe out whole urban populations.