Spotted a fox on your town's streets? Let the urban fox survey know
Urban fox. Picture: Jamie Hall / National Biodiversity Data Centre
Around now, vixens are giving birth to cub foxes which should be fully weaned and ready to head off into the world at large after about 12 weeks.
Many will yet be seen in towns and cities, following well-trodden paths of their ancestors in the search for food and shelter.
Given the extensive number of foxes now very much at home in the expanding urban environment, there’s a common belief their population has grown hugely here.
Experts, however, are slow to confirm an ‘explosion’ in numbers, but this doughty and highly adaptable survivor is thriving. In their 2019 book, , Tom Hayden and Rory Harrington estimate the fox population at between 150,000 and 200,000.
A report for 2024 from the Citizen Science Portal, which asks people to report sightings of wild animals, has the so-called urban fox heading the list on 2,522, followed by the common buzzard and hedgehog, but well ahead.
I first saw one of these foxes on a night, several years ago, stepping casually along streets lined with red-brick houses in the shadows of old Arsenal FC Stadium, in Highbury, north London. More recently, another fox looked at home in the darkened grounds of Trinity College, Dublin.
Most urban sightings are nocturnal for the obvious reason that wily foxes will move around when normally busy streets are quieter and far fewer humans are out and about.
You’ll see them poking in waste bins for food and sniffing around for discarded takeaways. Foxes have a varied diet and also feast on rodents, birds, frogs, insects and berries.
There are signs they are getting braver and now moving around more in daylight. Some people also feed them in their back gardens, with the result that these wild animals are getting tamer and becoming more like domestic dogs. Foxes also find cover and ground for dens under garden trees and shrubs.
Meanwhile, researchers at University of Galway are inviting people to participate in the ongoing Citizen Science survey recording sightings of red foxes in cities.
The survey is particularly focussed on the largest cities, north and south — Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Derry and Waterford.
It is hoped to gather as much valuable data as possible for conservation planning for the red fox and to find solutions to potential human-wildlife conflicts; all about tapping into the wealth of knowledge people have about wildlife in their area.
Dr Colin Lawton of University of Galway’s School of Natural Sciences says: “We would love to hear about any sighting, or encounter, with a fox, whether it is a regular garden visitor, or a chance meeting late at night."
Click here to report your urban fox sightings
