Eye on Nature
Art: Joshua Fronk
My wife Dana is an incorrigible collector of road kill. It’s not that she’s morbid; it’s that she loves wild things. And most wild things, especially those with sharp teeth or talons, are easier to touch and closely examine when they’re dead. At our house, a late-night run to the freezer for an ice cream fix can turn into an unexpected zoological adventure.
Right now, on the shelf below the frozen pizza and ice cream, you’d find a great horned owl, a western screech owl, a California quail, a ruby-throated hummingbird and a montane vole. Dana’s collection isn’t limited to the freezer. Spread about the bookshelves and counters are pieces of bone, fur, feathers, a dried dragonfly, a snake skin and a couple of beautifully preserved skulls. One of her prized possessions is a fox pelt. Three years ago, on the drive home from a backcountry ski trip, Dana saw the fox lying on the side of the road and, of course, immediately said, “Stop, turn around, we have to go look at it.” As I pulled a U-turn in the middle of the two-lane road, I remember distinctly saying, “Dana, we can stop and look at it, but we are not taking that fox home.” The fox was still warm, probably dead less than an hour, and it was beautiful.
As Dana stroked its soft fur and cradled its delicate head in her hands, I knew I was a goner. Not only did we take the fox home, I spent most of the night in the garage removing the pelt and taking the first steps in preserving it (you can find instructions for anything on the Web these days).
I carried the body to one of my favorite places in the hills and left it as an offering to the local scavengers.
As beautiful as the pelt is, Dana and I agree we’d much prefer it if the fox were still alive and in the wild. Around Park City there are lots of good places to observe foxes. One of the best is the Swaner EcoCenter, where at least one breeding pair lives year-round, but it’s possible to encounter foxes just about anywhere in this area, including most neighborhoods. The easiest time to observe foxes is in winter or early spring when there is less natural cover to conceal them, but they are definitely out and about during Park City summers.
Interestingly, foxes are not native to North America. They were imported from Europe by early settlers. The fox species found in this area is the Red Fox. Rusty-red with white bellies and throats, Red Foxes have prominent bushy tails with white tips. In winter, their fur lightens to an ash grey color. With their slender legs and expressive, cat-like features, foxes seem delicate, docile even, but they are cunning and efficient predators. They can run up to 45 miles per hour and are agile and acrobatic hunters. Foxes use their keen senses of sight, smell and hearing to locate prey. In winter, they listen for mice and voles digging or scratching beneath the snow, then pounce to collapse the snow and trap their prey. Like their coyote relatives, foxes are generalists and will eat insects, birds, grasses, berries and just about anything they can chew. Since they compete for the same food sources, coyotes will hunt and kill foxes if they can catch them.
Foxes are territorial and usually have several different dens within their domain. Often the same dens are used from one generation to the next. Foxes breed in January or February, and the female, or vixen, gives birth to up to 10 kits in early spring. Foxes stay together as a family until the young disperse in the fall, though sometimes young foxes will stay on with their parents for a year or more.
Because of their natural curiosity, foxes are usually easy to watch in the wild. If you give them space, they rarely flee and will sometimes even parallel your movements from a safe distance if you’re walking through large open spaces. And if you see a fox near the roadside, please slow down. My household already has plenty of specimens.
A long-time contributor, Mark Menlove muses about nature in each issue of Park City Magazine.
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