Red foxes turn up in 76 North Dakota records scattered across 29 counties, led by Stutsman and Cavalier, one of the most evenly spread predator maps in the state’s atlas. From the badlands of Theodore Roosevelt National Park to the aspen parkland and farm country of the east, the species works nearly every kind of open and edge cover the state offers.
A mousing specialist in a prairie state
For all its size, the red fox is built around small prey. It hunts mice and voles by ear, listening for movement under grass or snow before pouncing and pinning the animal with its forepaws, the same diving strike seen in summer fields and midwinter alike. Rabbits, birds, insects, and fruit round out a flexible diet, and dens go into banks and hillsides where sandy soil digs easily, often in a fencerow or pasture edge within sight of open hunting ground. Surplus food gets cached in shallow scrapes for leaner days.
Kits and dispersers
Foxes are active in every month, and North Dakota’s records rise from May through August for good reason. Vixens whelp their kits in spring, and by early summer adults are provisioning growing young and hunting more openly, while late summer sends the year’s dispersing foxes ranging far across the countryside. Winter is no quieter for the animal itself, when a red coat against the snow makes even a distant fox conspicuous.
Status in North Dakota
NatureServe ranks the red fox S5, Secure, in North Dakota, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
