They May Not Be Social Media Worthy But Any Image Can Tell You A Lot About Fox Health

 "It's all about knowing your fox and placing the camera in the right place" is the usual response from the social media posters who thrive on "Likes" and post 50-100+ images a day on any fox group they can find on Face Book.

More wildlife interested people tend to post their best images. Those are the ones that count, right?

Well, in reality, many will delete hundreds of images per week because they want the "good ones". Our camera is placed to check on fox health and numbers so even the not good images tell us a lot. Here are just some from Area A for 11 03 2025

Above: nice tail no sign of mange so that is one concern checked off.

Above: as the fox moves off its condition looks good and the foxes are not given names but we go by tails to identify them.

Above: this fox is alert and looks healthy enough and one thing we check for is eye reflection. If both eyes shine reflecting the infra red camera light then they are fine.  However, there have been healthy, very active foxes with eye shine in just one eye and this indicates an eye problem and in some cases blindness.  Those foxes live quite normal lives.

Below: nice shape to back so no problem there.

Now, here is something that you might see if you have a camera hog fox. As dog as fox? If a dog has their "inner eyelid" showing, it usually means their third eyelid, also called the nictitating membrane, is visible, which could indicate a condition called "cherry eye" - a prolapsed gland on the third eyelid, often appearing as a red bump in the corner of the eye; this can be caused by inflammation, injury, or simply a genetic predisposition in certain breeds, and should be checked by a veterinarian.

The problem is that this is a wild animal so would first need to be trapped then transported to a vet, sedated and checked out and even then it would not achieve much (other than stressing the fox). So, it seems able to move around with no problems and otherwise seems quite healthy so the options are... leave it alone.

All of the above are simply showing a fox with a good, rough coat and that overall, from what we can see, in good health. However, I doubt I would get 50 "Likes" on social media for these images!

We know we have two heavily pregnant vixens and those should be birthing any time now -or may have already done so. Trail cams mean that however "not to delight the public" they may be the images will tell us how the foxes are doing and in a month or so maybe even show one or two cubs -unless the number of cats (a threat to cubs) means the parents want the young to avoid the areas until they get older.

ignore the date stamps as no matter how many times we re-do the settings these cameras reset to factory dates!