Foxes - behaviour changes

[lawrenson]

Hi,

Hope you can help, and apologies for the length of this post.

We have noticed foxes in our garden for many years, but this year there has been a change in behaviour from them.

We live on the outskirts of a small town, and there have been foxes about for years. A few years ago we started feeding them occasionally (not a lot, just a few bits) in the back garden, but have never initiated any contact and have always just watched them out the window.

We have had up to 4 different foxes in the garden at one time, and up to 8 different foxes in an evening – which shows there were quite a few about. They didn’t seem to fight much (if at all) over food, although any food we put out was usually gone by the morning (unless it was something less appetising like dry bread), but I would guess there was a lot of food to go round and support such numbers. The foxes always came out nocturnally, and we heard the usual calls at the beginning of the year for mating.

Last summer however, we noticed one fox which would appear during the day. He was very bold, and not frightened of us, coming to within 2 of 3 feet of us – which contact he initiated, not us.

Towards the end of the summer, there was obviously a fight for territory, as we got scats and odour left in the garden, so we stopped putting food out, in order to make our garden appear less desirable.

We did start putting food out again in late November. However, although we have seen a fox sniff at it, it is now rarely eaten. There are still fresh fox trails in the garden, but we now rarely see any.

We have not seen the bold fox for a few months, but he has been seen during the day by neighbours.

There have been no mating calls very close this year either, although we have heard them from a distance.

So, we did have lots of foxes, which were nocturnal and ate all the food.

How we seem to only have 1 or 2 foxes, and the food gets left.

We haven’t seen any dead foxes around, and they all seemed perfectly healthy last summer.

I was wondering, does anyone know what has prompted this change?

My husband reckons that we now have a very dominant dog fox, who has chased nearly all the other foxes out of his area, and consequently has so much food he is now very picky!

Any ideas please?

Cheers,
Karen

[Wild-Woman]

I would think the other foxes have dispersed in order to find their own territory, especially at this time of year.
We find that our foxes here are mobile too. Sometimes we'll have nightly visits, sometimes they're not seen for months.
At the moment they're calling from a garden or two away. We'll have one run across the garden about dawn time and leg it over a 6ft fence.
Some years we'll find a massive area dug out from under the shed, then abandoned.
All pretty random stuff.

[The Woodman]

There are other factors to consider. Perhaps the high numbers you were originally seeing was the sum of a new population in a new territory i.e. a local litter and dam and as that population expanded it drew in males that have now established their own territories. Populations are affected by road casualties, disease (mange and distemper) and high parasite loadings. there may also be a possibility that numbers have been reduced by live trapping or other lethal control.
Your husbands thoughts may be right. Keep watching, you have the makings of an interesting study in your garden.