Origins of North America's Red Fox

M

Michael J. McCasland

New member
I was reading an article on the Red Fox in the Varmint Hunters Magazine the other day. In that article the author indicated that the Red Fox has a history in North America that goes back many thousands of years. This got me to woudering. Back when I lived in New York they said that the Red Fox that we all saw was not a native fox but one brought over and released. Supposedly for English style fox hunting. What is the trueth. Is the Red Fox a true native or is it a non-native species?

Michael
 
Michael M.--The red fox is indeed native to North America. In the spring of 1804 Lewis and Clark sent a keel boat load of stuff from Ft. Mandan in North Dakota (where they wintered) back to St. Louis for President Jefferson; kind of a status report of the expedition.

Anyway, within that load of stuff were 13 red fox pelts, 2 cross fox pelts, and 2 silver fox pelts that came from what is now North Dakota. Cross and silver fox are genetic recessive color variations of the red fox.

At that time they indicated that red foxes were not uncommon. Further, they indicated there were 2 kinds of wolves. The large ones that were everywhere, and a smaller type that was very rare. We suspect the smaller one was the coyote. The fact that they were considered rare would fit nicely into a model of interspecific competition that shows the most intense pressure comes from the biggest dog in the pile onto the next smaller one under him.

A truly fascinating expedition. If you ever have an opportunity to read the original 9 volume set of the Lewis and Clark journals, I'm sure you will be as impressed as I was.
 
Michael,

Several months ago a few of us got into this very discussion on another board. Like you, I had read somewhere (a long time ago) that some of the early day settlers imported the red fox from England so that they could run them in the traditional manner with their fox hounds. The native gray fox is more inclined to tree than run if pressed hard by a pack of hounds.

Someone else produced a website, I believe it was from the Canadian Wildlife Service, that stated that the red fox was native to Canada and northern United States.

I am inclined to believe it is a combination of both. I have read that George Washington himself maintained a pack of fox hounds. He is certainly credited with importing the very first jackass to the new world to be bred to work horses and so produce mules as work animals. It makes perfect sense to me that he, and/or others like him, would have also imported the red fox to provide sport for themselves and their hounds.
 
Makes on wonder doesn't it. From what I remember of the fox that I saw in Northern NEw York they seemed bigger, redder, whiter and had blacker stockings that most of the fox pictures I see. But memory does things like that to you. The red fox that we see down here in Arizona sure doesn't look like anything that I saw back east. This started me wondering if the import that I had read about was a european red fox that mixed with the American Red Fox.

Michael
 
The red fox is the widest spread canid in the world, other than the domestic dog.

They were imported for sport to the "new world" because I think there were either none, or very few in the east back then.

That's somethign that the wolves were more common than the coyotes, I guess that's because that long ago coyotes hadn't made it so far east. It wasn't until the wolves were nearly eradicated, and became extinct in many areas, that the coyote could fill that niche and move east.
 
There is what is called an Old world red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and a new world red fox (Vulpes fulva) the old worls red fox is the one that i, if i am not mistakentha is found in europe, and the new world in what we have here in america. through adaptive radiation and survuval of the fittest as well as the bering land bridge that once many many many moons ago used to connecet present day america with eurasia. Now there is no physcial differences but obvious DNA differences, so there you go thats my best educated answer.
 
Michael, I think the fox vary slightly from area to area. Like the whitetail deer, small in Florida, huge in Maine or Alberta. I averaged 125 fox per year before the mange wiped them out, well, nearly wiped out. Some had almost all white legs, some had nearly all black legs, here in IA. Some were very pale, some cherry red. In WY the fox are larger and paler. Some were almost yellow they were so pale. Some fox have a white tip on the tail, some don't. Some have a lot of, or a little black in the tail. I think that the coyote has the same or simular color and size variances. Some have white tipped tails like fox. Ahhh, then there are my favorite, the long haired, pale coyote. The ones that I sold to Groenwold for 45-50$, when the IA coyote fetched 10-20.T20
 
In California, the Red Fox is considered an endangered species, and it is native only to the Sierra Nevada.

But exotic/introduced reds (imported for fox hunting) escaped to became a HUGE problem in the Bay Area and the Delta, and on down the coast to Monterey and the Salinas Valley. Prey on shorebirds and ground nesters and have nearly wiped out burrowing owls, snowy plover, clapper rail, among other species.

For some years no distinction between the Sierran and the exotics was recognized by the state's own ESA, complicating control measures. Not to mention reds are really cute and became quite accustomed to people feeding them. Dunno the current status of all this but a trapping/euthanizing program was undertaken for snowy plover recovery.

After talking to a couple of old-time biologists and long-timers I suspect the fox problem might be related to widespread Compound 1080 use, specifically aerial spreading of 1080 coated millet. A helicopter pesticide applicator I know told me about his award plaque commending him for an 80% kill ratio of ground squirrels over 100,000 acres here in Monterey Co.

1080 being a triple kill poison this must have had a devastating effect on coyote populations. Given a healthy coyote population, Red Foxes probably wouldn't be thriving in the same areas, but since they eat mostly waterfowl weren't impacted by the 1080 like coyotes...

Also according to a top federal biologist who used to manage its recovery, the San Joaquin Kit Fox was also listed as threatened due to squirrel poisoning impact.

LionHo
 
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