Only one mammal in this atlas out-records the red fox in Delaware, and its 1,379 records put it everywhere a fox could plausibly hunt, from the farm country of Kent County, which holds nearly half the total, out to the dunes of Fenwick Island and Delaware Seashore State Parks.
A hunter of open edges
The red fox is an edge animal, and Delaware is almost all edge: crop fields beside woodlots, marsh margins at Bombay Hook and Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuges, and suburban green space all fit. It hunts mostly small rodents, listening for movement under grass or snow before the famous arcing pounce, but rabbits, birds, insects, fruit, and carrion round out the menu. That flexibility is what lets one species occupy the whole state, from the Wilmington suburbs to the southern farm belts.
May is den season
Records crest in May, when pairs are provisioning growing pups and foxes are abroad at more hours of the day than usual. The young are born in March or April in a den, often a remodeled groundhog burrow, and by midsummer they are learning to hunt alongside the adults. Foxes stay active through every month of a Delaware winter, and the record never really goes quiet.
Status in Delaware
NatureServe ranks the red fox S5, Secure, in Delaware, and it is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
