Florida’s 398 red fox records tilt toward the northern half of the state, led by Alachua, Leon, and Duval counties, the southern edge of the species’ range in the East. Here the red fox is the open-country fox, sharing the state with the forest-loving gray fox and splitting the landscape between them.
Open ground over deep woods
A red fox hunts where it can run, pastures, farmland, field edges, and the margins of suburbia, pouncing on mice and voles it locates by ear. Dense woods suit it poorly, which is why Florida’s record leans on mixed and open landscapes rather than the big forest tracts. Gainesville’s Natural Area Teaching Laboratory and Lake Alice anchor the Alachua County cluster, with Paynes Prairie Preserve, Tosohatchee Wildlife Management Area, and Apalachicola National Forest adding records along the same north-central band.
A spring window
Reports rise through spring and crest in April and May, the weeks when kits are at the den and both parents hunt hard in daylight to feed them. Red foxes stay active all year in Florida’s climate, but the denning season makes them far easier to spot.
Status in Florida
NatureServe has not assigned the red fox a state rank in Florida (SNR, Unranked), though the species is G5, secure, across its wide global range. It is treated as native to Florida, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state.
Full species profile
