The red fox is an established immigrant in Tennessee, not a native. It arrived in the Southeast through foxes imported for hunting and through natural spread out of the north, and its 453 Tennessee records now run from Cherokee National Forest in the east to Land Between the Lakes near the Kentucky line.
A hunter of the in-between
Red foxes do best where woods break into open country, field margins, brushy fencerows, pastures, and the fringes of towns, hunting mice, voles, and rabbits and rounding out the menu with birds, insects, and fruit. That taste for the in-between shows in the county pattern, led by Davidson, Hamilton, and Knox, the kind of settled, half-open country where a fox can den in a ground burrow and hunt the edges at night.
Spring belongs to the kits
Red foxes breed in midwinter, and the kits arrive about two months later. Tennessee’s sightings crest in April and May, when the pups first appear at the den mouth and both parents hunt around the clock to feed them. Records continue in every month, since foxes stay active through winter rather than denning up.
Status in Tennessee
NatureServe assigns the red fox an S rank of SNA, Not Applicable, because the species is exotic in Tennessee. It carries no special state-level conservation listing and reads as a widespread, self-maintaining addition to the state’s mammal fauna rather than a native animal in need of protection.
Full species profile
