Alabama’s red fox record, 385 occurrences across 45 counties, centers on Jefferson County and the northern tier, with one cluster standing well apart from the rest: Dauphin Island, whose dunes and maritime woods account for more records than any other single place in the state.
A hunter of edges and open ground
The red fox hunts mice, voles, and rabbits by ear and pounce, working open cover rather than deep woods. That keeps it along pasture margins, old fields, roadsides, and beach dunes, the patchwork country where Baldwin’s coast, the fields around Chewacla State Park, and the forest edges of Bankhead and Talladega national forests all qualify. Pups are raised in a burrow den, often dug into a sandy slope or bank, and the same adaptable diet, from grasshoppers to persimmons, lets the fox live close to farms and towns as easily as in forest country.
April brings the den into view
Counts crest in April and May, when pups first emerge to play at the den mouth and both adults travel constantly to feed them, the most visible the species gets all year. The fox is active in every season, though; a red shape crossing an open field at dusk is a midwinter sight as readily as a spring one.
Status in Alabama
NatureServe ranks the red fox S4, Apparently Secure, in Alabama, and the species is treated as native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
