Please do not hurt me or my mom. ♥️🦊♥️

We just temporarily moved to the neighborhood so we could be “safe.”
If you have suddenly seen a fox in the yard near your home, there is a good reason for this.

It is denning season. Between the end of March and early April, a mother fox will give birth to between 4 and 5 kits (a baby fox is called a kit).

A coyote will often find a fox den, dig out the babies, and kill them.
A mother fox knows this and will frequently choose a den site close to people, away from where coyotes generally go.

A fox will often den under a porch, shed, garage, barn, or side of a hill, trying to keep her little family safe.
Please offer them a short-term rental because this is not a permanent situation.

If you are lucky enough to see how beautiful an adult fox is, or witness the kits playing (at a distance of course), you will be glad you did!
It is not uncommon for Red Foxes to change dens several times during the season, so you may not see them for long.

Kits are slow to develop and will not leave the den until they are about a month old. Foxes do not live in a den year-round, only when a mother has babies.

During the summer as the kits grow older, you will see less and less of them, and by September everyone will have packed up and moved on. Please do not call a service to “relocate them”, they will often be killed.

If you see a fox during the day, it does not mean she is rabid. A mother fox works tirelessly to feed her kits and will often be out during daylight hours foraging for food.

Foxes are omnivores, generally feeding on berries, grasses, and small rodents. They are solitary and prefer to be left alone.

They do not want to hunt and eat your children, mate with your dog, or kill your cat.

A fox just wants a place to raise her family safely, please allow her to do that.

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Classification

Listed below are the true foxes of the genus Vulpes.

V. BENGALENSIS (Bengal, or Indian, fox)
Small (1.5–3 kg) and gray; found in sparsely wooded regions of the Indian subcontinent.

V. CANA (Blanford’s, or hoary, fox)
Small (1–2 kg) and catlike, with soft fur and a long bushy tail; found in the mountain steppes and deserts of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Israel; coat gray above, white below.

V. CHAMA (Cape fox, South African silver fox, or chama)
Long-eared fox inhabiting dry areas of Southern Africa, particularly in the Kalahari desert region; weight 4 kg, body length usually less than 60 cm; coat gray.

V. CORSAC (corsac, or steppe, fox)
Small and social steppe-dwelling fox that inhabits steppes and semideserts of eastern Eurasia; coat yellowish gray or brown to reddish gray; body similar in form to the red fox but with larger legs and ears.

V. FERRILATA (Tibetan fox)
Short-eared short-tailed fox of the barren slopes and streambeds of Nepal; length to 70 cm, weight up to 4 kg or more; colour variable.

V. PALLIDA (pale fox)
1.5–3.5-kg fox inhabiting the Sahel savannas and southern desert margin of northern Africa; coat yellow to brown; similar in form to the red fox but with longer legs and ears.

V. RUEPPELLI (sand fox)
Big-eared fox of the deserts of northern Africa southward to Sudan; also found in Saudi Arabia and southwestern Asia; weight usually 2 or 3 kg, length to 80 cm, including tail; coat sandy or silvery gray with black patches on the face.

V. VELOX (swift fox)
Sometimes considered as two species, V. velox (swift fox) and V. macrotis (kit fox); large-eared pale foxes of the western North American plains (swift fox) and deserts (kit fox); shy and uncommon; adult length about 40–50 cm without the 20–30-cm tail, weight about 1.5–3 kg; burrow dweller that feeds on small animals (rodents, rabbits, insects); coat gray to yellowish brown with black-tipped tail.

V. VULPES (red fox)
Large (5–7-kg) fox of North America, Eurasia, and northern Africa and introduced to Australia; length 90–105 cm, including the 35–40-cm tail; coat typically reddish brown but variable.

V. ZERDA (fennec)
Smallest fox (about 1 kg), often classified in its own separate genus; adaptations for North African desert life include hairy soles to facilitate traction and protect feet from hot sand as well as huge ears to detect burrowing insects and small mammals; coat light tan.