Gray Fox with pups by Mark Fraser

The Common Gray Fox is truly an amazing species. They are usually active at twilight and during the night although sometimes you can get lucky and see this species looking for food in the dense brush or forested areas during daylight. Gray Fox will eat many different foods, in fact they will eat pretty much whatever they can find. The young pups seen on this video seemed to like crickets and grasshoppers and enjoyed chasing moths and jumping in the air for them although I think that was more for fun than an actual meal. They are certainly a handful for the mother fox, as they are constantly running, wrestling with each other and are absolutely full of childhood energy! Gray Fox are an incredible species that needs clean and safe habitat to survive. I'm Mark Fraser see me at http://www.naturewalkswithmark.org and thank you so much for watching and for protecting wildlife habitat!


Did you know?

Gray Fox can climb trees! Yep! Thanks to their curved claws, they are the only K9 native to North America that can actually climb a tree!
They mark their territory with scent posts!
By about 4 months of age they can completely hunt for themselves.
They will feed on small mammals like rabbits and mice as well as insects but also plants and even fruits such as cherries. Being a K9 species they are considered as carnivores however, they certainly are not true solitary meat eaters and will often behave more like an omnivore. The time of year, and availability of food makes a big difference as to how they feed.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Discovery
• Channel
• Born
• Animal
• Mark
• Fraser
• Gray
• Fox
• Nocturnal
• Puppies
• naturewalkswithmark

[gizmotwadlebutt]

Did you know?

Gray fox are native to north america, Red fox were brought from Europe.

In the old days of fox hunting the gray fox did not run as far went up trees or in the ground. The fox hunters wanted a chase so they brought red foxes here. So now we have more red foxes than gray foxes.

[nwwmark]

Great post! The Gray Foxes are certainly amazing climbers! The Red Fox origins are an extremely interesting phenomena. You are totally correct that Red Foxes were introduced to North America however it is believed that Red Foxes also lived in North America, a native species since the last glaciation period. There is genetic studies on going to see the impact of the European species to the native species. Fox make some incredible calls at night- amazing species. Outstanding post.

[nwwmark]

Great post! The Gray Foxes are certainly amazing climbers! The Red Fox origins are an extremely interesting phenomena. You are totally correct that Red Foxes were introduced to North America however it is believed that Red Foxes also lived in North America, a native species since the last glaciation period. There is genetic studies on going to see the impact of the European species to the native species. Fox make some incredible calls at night- amazing species. Outstanding post.

[nwwmark]

Thanks so much John!

[AtheistinFundyLand]

In my county, red foxes are nearly absent. We have the lovely gray fox. In places with people, you can often watch their natural behavior.

[Jerryguy1818]

gray foxes live in my yard 

[Ginnymo62]

Gray Fox are my favorite. Have been watching families of them for quite a few years now. They are beautiful creatures and I'm going to be sad when hunting and trapping season starts. Great video and thanks!

[volk551]

@nwwmark Wow the damned double post. Don't you hate when that happens?

[jeffhardyfan12341]

We had a Gray Fox in our back yard yesterday, our dog Baylee found it and was playing with it. We believe it was a pup without a mom, unfortunately it attacked the officer that tried to bring it in and had to put it down. It made me sad, but I guess we couldn't risk harming any of our animals, even though it seemed it wasn't rabid

[TheBeatfox]

@gizmotwadlebutt ...The general consensus is that most of the red foxes in the U.S. migrated down from Canada (where they were widespread pre-settlement) as a result of habitat change and urbanization.

(Sorry for the ramble, heh - I hope at least some of that was informative!)

[TheBeatfox]

@gizmotwadlebutt We have at least 3 subspecies of red fox known to have existed here before European settlement: one in the Rockies, one in the Sierra Nevada, and one in the Cascades. They weren't widespread throughout the U.S. like they are now, though; but neither did the foxes imported from Europe have much of a genetic impact on the existing populations, apparently...

[TheBeatfox]

@gizmotwadlebutt If you look at pictures of red foxes in North America, they much more closely resemble Asian red foxes than the ones in Britain and Western Europe. It's theorized that they crossed the ancient Bering Land Bridge from Asia in the same way that the native peoples of the Americas did.

[TheBeatfox]

@gizmotwadlebutt I know of several captive foxes who have lived to be 15 or older - if you search for SpiritWhiteFox2 on YouTube, she's got a pet fox who is currently 15.

15 is definitely up there in fox years, though, and much older than they would live to be in the wild!

[gizmotwadlebutt]

@nwwmark If you ever here of the out come of the studies will you please post them.

I did not know we had a native red fox. My dad was the one that told me about red foxes and the hunting. My grandpa was a fox hunter, from what dad told me the point was to hear the dog chase them. They did not kill them or want them killed.

My neighbor had two red foxes they were very vocal and also had a very strong smell. They live to be about 15 years old. I was told that is a long lifespan for foxes.