The gray fox is Pennsylvania’s other fox, the one that keeps to the woods. Its 270 records lean on forested counties like Centre, Monroe, and Clarion and on big public timber, from the Quehanna Wild Area to Tiadaghton and Moshannon state forests.
The fox that climbs
Among North American canids, the gray fox alone climbs trees with ease. Strong, curved claws let it scramble up leaning trunks and along limbs to escape dogs, raid a squirrel nest, or rest in a crotch above the ground. That habit suits Pennsylvania’s ridge-and-valley hardwoods, with their dense understory and rock outcrops, where it dens in hollow logs, brush piles, and crevices and hunts rabbits, mice, fruit, and insects along the edges.
A quiet summer peak
June and July produce the year’s best counts, when family groups stay active near the den and young foxes begin wandering at dusk. The gray fox is thoroughly nocturnal and largely silent, so it is far commoner in the woods than an evening walk suggests, and its year-round presence barely shows outside the months when daylight lingers.
Status in Pennsylvania
NatureServe ranks the gray fox S5, Secure, in Pennsylvania. The species is native to the state, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
