fox and cat

[rooftop]

Hi Wabbsters,
It was very interesting to observe the dignified way a fox[new to our garden] and our neighbour's cat reacted to each other over the weekend.
They were both prowling toward a 'head' on meeting, when they spotted each other at a distance of 6 or 7 feet by our pond.
After a gentle stop, a crouch, a narrowing of eyes and realisation of each others space, the fox performed a balletic, 180 degree turn and sauntered off in the opposite direction, disappearing under the hole in our fence.
My wife did comment on how different the reaction of a dog might have been in similar circumstances!

[fairplay]

That's a lovely shot - hopefully it will dispel a lot of myths of foxes attacking cats, no doubt they do occasionally, but when a cat is determined to defend it's territory, the fox will back off rather than risk injury.

Neil.

[Tringa]

Nice shot. I agree with Fairplay, this is the cat's territory so the fox may be on the back foot, so to speak and I think both know there are big risks involved in a fight.

It is also the circumstances of the meeting, I think. Our cat just sit and watches foxes go by in the garden.

However, once when we and the next door neighbours were in the garden a fox appeared. The cat was not happy and made it clear she was not tolerating it and it retreated over the back wall. I don't think the presence of humans had an effect on the cat, but I wonder if the fox, who could see us, felt more uneasy and somehow showed that, so the cat took advantage and was more forceful.

Dave

[Paul mabbott]

I used regularly to watch close encounters between these two:

It never came to blows but both animals would turn and retreat rather than having a confrontation.
A lot will depend upon the age and nature of the beasts. This vixen was young and the cat old, neither were in prime condition for a fight!

[vole-woman]

Every single video I've ever seen of foxes and cats together on YouTube shows the fox either fleeing, keeping its distance from, or being beaten up by the cat.

Nice pictures!

[Billabong Karen]

I agree. Cats are TOUGH. I dont have one any more, but my old cat was completely unfazed by foxes. He would keep completely still, except for the slightest twitching of the tip of his tail, and then just stare it down until the fox left...

My dogs, by contrast, go absolutely crackerdog if they so much as catch a whiff of fox in the garden.

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

A lot will depend upon the age and nature of the beasts. This vixen was young and the cat old, neither were in prime condition for a fight!

I think that is very pertinent observation. It's unwise to read anything general into these observations of cat/fox encounters, in fact I'd put any observation of a fox in daytime as belonging to a special category, along with presence of 'human'. I don't doubt that a well built mature fox would take as prey, a small immature domestic cat in circumstance where the fox did not feel exposed to human/canine danger and where hunger or the need to feed young was an influence. In the exposure of daylight, in areas reeking of human and dog and not being driven by a need for a big kill, there's little advantage to a fox taking on a mature healthy cat.

In the anthropomorphising stakes, my inclinition, rather than plumping for the 'cats are tough' approach, would be 'foxes are smarter than cats' - after all what do the cats in these encounters actually have to gain from standing their ground, except perhaps that 'turning tail' might actually be a greater danger than 'facing off' ?

[The Woodman]

Rooftops OP and image of the black cat and fox caused me to rummage thro' hundreds of pics and scan two.

Back in the early 80's my terrier carried out a one week old cub from an earth inside a rabbit fenced area. My forestry student at the time brought the dog fox up alongside his entire black tomcat.

The two animals would play for hours in the estate yard and the tom would get amorous with the the fox frequently!

[bigdave60dog]

True, foxes will not usually risk attacking healthy adult cats (there will always be exceptions of course) they can`t afford to risk being too injured to hunt. However they do take kittens and older or weaker feral cats as a matter of course. Doubtless adult cats will take small fox cubs if the opportunity presents itself. Both are efficient predators and the chance of reasonably a risk free meal is too good to miss.
Dave

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by bigdave60dog

Both are efficient predators and the chance of reasonably a risk free meal is too good to miss.

Competitor predators are usually intollerant of one another, foxes are hardly ever tollerated by wolves and it would be interesting to know what the dynamic between fox and wild cat might once have been. The encounters between fox and domestic cat are of course entirely human mediated, particularly the frequency of encounter in urban areas where both the populations of cats and foxes are at levels that could never be sustained without human presence. In that sense we are probably looking at evolving behaviours on the part of both animals although the evolutionary pressures are far more strongly focussed on the fox rather than the cat.

CM