Oregon’s 377 red fox records carry a striking tilt toward high country. The Three Sisters Wilderness alone accounts for 34, with Eagle Cap Wilderness, Mt. Hood National Forest, and Crater Lake National Park close behind, and Deschutes, Wallowa, and Lane counties leading the county list. This is a map of Cascade and Wallowa mountain country more than of the western valleys.
A fox of the high Cascades
Oregon’s native red foxes include the Cascade red fox, a mountain subspecies of the high Cascades that works open subalpine meadows and parkland above the dense forest. There it hunts voles, mice, and ground squirrels, listening for movement under the snow and taking prey with a vertical pounce. Records out of Crater Lake and the high wilderness areas fit that montane pattern, though the red fox is a generalist and turns up in farmlands and forest edges as well.
Dens, kits, and a May peak
Red foxes den in spring, and kits born in early spring emerge as both parents shuttle food to the den, which helps explain why May stands as the clearest high point in the Oregon calendar. Adults stay on their home range all year, hunting through winter rather than hibernating, and reports continue in every month at a lower level.
Status in Oregon
NatureServe ranks the red fox S4, Apparently Secure, in Oregon, and the species is treated as native to its Oregon range. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
