Red Fox

The red fox is the smaller, sharper, more elusive cousin of the coyote and one of the most successful carnivores on the planet. Eight to fifteen pounds, slender, with that signature rusty coat, black socks, and white tail-tip, the red fox occupies an enormous global range — Eurasia, North Africa, and most of North America. The North American picture is complicated: native red foxes exist in the boreal and montane West, but lowland populations across much of the East and Midwest carry European red fox genetics from colonial-era introductions. Hunting red fox in the modern American sense is overwhelmingly a calling-and-trapping pursuit rather than a hound-and-horn pursuit; the formal mounted fox-hunting tradition survives in pockets of the East but is its own world. For most hunters today, red fox shows up as a secondary target during coyote calling setups (a fox will often beat a coyote to a call) or as a primary furbearer target for trappers running winter lines. They're trap-shy, call-shy, and educate faster than coyotes; a fox that's seen one bad setup will avoid the same spot for months. Eating is rare — most hunters use the pelt and not the carcass.