Foxes | Leslie Patten Books: Wild Places, Sacred Spaces

The Fox and the Hound

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Leslie

O.K. I exaggerate. The hound would be Koda who found the carcasses but he never saw the fox, nor was he interested in a hunt.

Several days ago Koda found a dead yearling deer partially snowed over under a dead tree root. I recognized the yearling as one of the babies that had been frequenting my yard this winter with his sister and mother. How he died I wasn’t sure. His ribs exposed and his rumen still inside but all the organs eaten out, and the head missing. He could have just died from the harsh winter, or possibly a cougar kill that had been buried in the snow, and exposed when the snow melted.

Cougars will frequently just eat just the internal organs as they lack the ability to manufacture Vitamin A. It had snowed the evening before and there were no cougar tracks to be found, just a lot of canine tracks. I’m not very familiar with fox tracks vs. coyote tracks, so I just wasn’t sure which one it was. I put my trail camera on movie, and left it there for two days. I wanted to make sure I didn’t run into any bears. I heard they are starting to emerge, and they’d be looking for winter kills. The boar grizzlies emerge first. In the 6 winters I’ve been here, my limited experience is that while Yellowstone and the North Fork report bears in early March a lot of times, our area is slightly later by about a month. We may just have more forest without homes, while the North Fork is a narrow corridor with a lot of cabins.

I returned in two days to find this video on my camera.

Now armed with the knowledge that these tracks clearly belonged to a fox, I checked all around and noticed a distinct path the fox had followed to, and from, the carcass up the hill. This fox had followed his own trail to the carcass then back to his den or lay. Clearly the trail was deliberate, not like a wandering excursion. So I got my GPS out and followed his trail.

Wolf track lower left; fox track lower right. Then they cross.

Fox track and ruler; foxes have lots of fur on their feet which makes for indistinct tracks

Following the fox’s track reminded me of when I followed a bobcat track up this same mountain last year. Up and up he went. Unlike coyotes or wolves who like to follow path (like deer paths), or course across a hill or mountain, this guy was going straight up and ignoring worn paths.

Fox track close-up

As I got higher, the snow softened and I kept ‘post-holing’; each footstep was sinking deep into the drifts and I had a hard time climbing. The fox on the other hand was gliding across the snow. Koda was sinking too. Of course, Koda weighs 90 pounds and that fox might weigh 20 pounds.

Fox continues but I don’t

Finally, I could just go no more. I was high up the mountain, on steep sides with deep snow. I took a GPS reading, hung a bit of shiny stuff on a limb, and decided to return when the snows melted some and explore.

Where I had to stop because of deep snow

This is exactly what happened when I followed a bobcat last year. I lost his tracks when the mountain turned into a jumble of boulders high up near its summit. Probably he had his den there as bobcats like rock shelters.

Foxes according to Rezendes, might be a link between canines and felines. He writes:

In fack, there was originally some dispute as to whether foxes should be classed taxonomically as dogs or cats. Cats are direct-registering animals, and foxes are direct-registering animals. Foxes have eyes similar to those of cats; their pupils dilate elliptically, up and down, rather than in a round fashion, as dogs’ eyes do.

And gray foxes can climb trees, the only canine that can do so. Plus they have semi-retractable claws. A lot of times their claws do not show in tracks.

Red fox pelts come in the full variety of colors, from red to black, grey to white. But always they have the white tip. Red foxes are native to North America.

Just a few of the possible fox coat colors

It is believed they crossed into North America sometime during the last ice age about 35,000 to 11,500 years ago. Foxes of this wave are closely related to the European, and Canadian red fox. But in the Beartooth mountains by my home, there is another red fox that is being studied. These foxes are believed to have arrived during the Illinoian glacier period, 310,000 to 128,000 years ago, and could be the ancestors to a genetically isolated populations of red fox living in the Western U.S. They live high up (7000-10,000 ft.). I suppose since I’m at 6800′ I could be seeing some very ancient ancestral foxes.

A Beartooth fox at 10,000 feet

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Some winter musings

Posted on February 22, 2014 by Leslie

So far this winter has been a roller coaster of temperatures. December brought weeks of sub- zero temps, while almost every day in January was in the high 30’s and 40’s. All our snow in the valley melted and the ground was bare. Then one day two feet of snow fell, and didn’t stop. One constant has been wind–a lot of it and up to 50 mph.

Before all the deep snows came, I spent a lot of time watching for wildlife and sometimes seeing them. I had several glimpses of a lame coyote, with a hurt or broken back left leg. One day I saw him scurry across a wide field. I wondered if he’d make it through the winter, with his lameness as well as wolves to watch out for. Then a few weeks later I saw him stealing a large bone from a recent deer kill. It was early morning when I noticed the coyote. He saw my car and started running for cover. It was then I saw it was my limpy friend. I took a few photos and was on my way.

Here’s the fellow. Who knows what happened to his leg. In his attempt to flee, he dropped his prize bone. That’s when I left, allowing him to return to it.

Poor guy had it tough enough without me making it harder. But on the way home I checked for his tracks. I was curious what a useless left back leg would look like in the tracks.

The arrow points the direction he was headed

You can tell what a difficult time he is having because his gait is so uneven. Look for that tiny imprint of his lame foot.

You can see the small imprint of his left hind leg. The back legs are in front because he is running

One ski tour I took a few more photos of tracks. This time a Snowshoe Hare and a Marten track

Distinct weasel-type prints 2×2

Front feet are in the rear and the back feet on top. Look how big and wide the back feet are, like a snowshoe. Hence, the name

Here’s a photo from January on the flats behind my house. Where’s all the snow?

This is a large herd of about 350 elk. No snow in January

Here’s a puzzle. We had a few days of intense snow without a let-up. During a short let-up of the storm, I took a walk around our woods and discovered this interesting ‘hole’. It doesn’t go anywhere, but was obviously a temporary snow shelter dug out during the storm just above the base of a tree on a hillside. The hole measured about 6 or 7 inches across, big enough for a fox or a skunk. I have seen skunks once here, but they are rare. So are raccoons at this altitude. I wondered what could have done this. All tracks were obliterated by the recent snows.

Hole that doesn’t go anywhere dug out for a temporary shelter.

I found bobcat tracks around my house. Bobcats have become quite rare around here because of intense trapping. Bobcat pelts can go for up to $1000! and so a lot of newbies want to cash in. Wyoming has no limit on how many bobcats a person can trap and the season is long, pretty much all winter. So I set up a camera trap to get some photos. I’ve never been successful catching photos of bobcats, except the few times I’ve seen them myself. But instead of catching a bobcat, I caught a shot of this fox.

I understand from some old timers around here that foxes used to be quite rare. Canines are territorial and will kill other canines in their area. Wolves kill coyotes, coyotes kill foxes. I’ve seen foxes quite a lot since I’ve lived here and I think the wolves are keeping the coyotes either ‘in check’ or enough on their toes so that there is room for foxes again.

I discovered a secret game trail that is quite a hike from my house. An old water diversion ditch, it appeared the wildlife were using it frequently. I also found a deer kill nearby. To confirm my suspicions, I set my trail camera up and left it there for 6 weeks. I got a lot of photos of rabbits, deer, elk, coyotes, and wolves. Here are a few. Look at the temperature on the two nighttime wolf photos. Its -33 degrees!