The red fox’s 723 North Carolina records cross all three of the state’s regions, from Pisgah and Nantahala national forests and Grandfather Mountain through the Piedmont around Wake and Durham counties to the coastal plain of Brunswick and New Hanover. The common thread is not forest but edge, open hunting ground beside cover.
A hunter of edges and open ground
Red foxes hunt mice, voles, and rabbits in fields, pastures, and clearings, listening for prey moving in the grass and taking it with a high, arcing pounce. Fruit, insects, and birds round out the menu. That reliance on open ground within reach of cover draws them to farmland, cutovers, and even town fringes, where small woodlots and parks like William B. Umstead State Park can hold a resident fox.
Spring belongs to the dens
Reports climb through April and May, the season when kits come above ground. Adults den in late winter, and by mid-spring they are making constant trips to feed growing pups, putting foxes in view at hours when they are usually discreet. The young disperse in fall, and pairs settle back into quieter winter routines.
Status in North Carolina
NatureServe ranks the red fox S4, Apparently Secure, in North Carolina, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous in the state. Some red foxes were carried south and released for hunting in early colonial times, so today’s southeastern animals have mixed ancestry, but the species is treated as native to its North Carolina range.
Full species profile
