Rare red fox subspecies thriving in Beartooth range - In the drainages, plateaus and enclaves of the Beartooth Mountains, a relic of two ice ages ago is thriving despite being isolated for hundreds of thousands of years. The Rocky Mountain subspecies of the red fox is a success story in survival despite rarely receiving the benefits of conservation efforts.
Patrick Cross is an ecologist and lab manager at the Yellowstone Ecological Research Center based in Bozeman, Montana and he writes https://abatlas.org/from-nutcrackers-to-cutthroat/fox-of-the-beartooth
"No matter where you are in the world, if you see a fox, chances are it is the species red fox (Vulpes vulpes). That’s because the red fox is the world’s most widely distributed terrestrial carnivore, naturally ranging across North America, Europe, Asia, and northern Africa, and introduced to Australia. It has a remarkably diverse diet beyond its typical small rodent prey base – Norwegian red foxes have been observed hunting deer fawns, Japanese red foxes have been seen fishing for salmon, Spanish red foxes have been recorded picking berries and pouncing on beetles. And it inhabits likewise diverse habitats, from deserts and forests to suburban backyards and farms, hence the proverbial “fox in the hen coop.” Such a long-running and widespread coexistence with people has earned the red fox an important place in our shared culture and traditions, like the always hungry fox in Aesop’s Fables, or the thousand-year-old nine-tailed fox from Korean legend, or the cunning Reynard of French bedtime stories."
"But given such a wide distribution across such a wide variety of environments, there is substantial diversity within the red fox species as well. Some populations have been isolated from other red foxes for so long that they are becoming distinct in themselves and are considered subspecies. In the American West, for example, large mountain ranges act like islands isolating red foxes adapted to life in a subalpine environment, resulting in distinct subspecies in the Sierra Nevada, Cascade Range, and Rocky Mountains, respectively. There can even be substantial variation within populations, like with coat color: in 1881, Yellowstone National Park superintendent Philetus Norris wrote that its red foxes were “numerous and of various colors, the red, grey, black, and cross varieties (most valuable of all) predominating in the order named.”
What has this to do with our extinct Old foxes? The length of fur, etc. in this image would fit how the Old foxes were described and especially the Mountain/Greyhound fox that lived in pretty wild, wet and cold territory. The head of our Old foxes were slightly different as were, it seems from the ones we have, the dentition -all of this needs to be studied thoroughly. Of course, the Mountain fox we have is larger than a coyote; in fact those we have are all large.
Our Old foxes developed into three types (not species but types -variations for their habits and habitats) and these would have been Ice Age foxes that, once the Doggerland Bridge was flooded, spent millennia rather like the Old wolf as an island species and with the wolf it did not succumb to island dwarfism. These Old foxes were also in Ireland until it, too, separated from mainland Britain and no doubt developed along its own lines (again, as did the Irish wolf which also was untouched by dwarfism). "Gifts" of Mountain foxes sent to Irish hunts confuse matters since it is hard to tell exactly when the Irish Old fox died or how long it survived before or during importation. Mange in Ireland -thank the hunts and circumstances around their importation -all detailed in The Red Paper 2022 Vol. I Canids.
old British mountain fox illo by Col Thomson
Left unhindered by hunting for 'fun' foxes can survive as shown with the Beartooth Mountain foxes. It is interesting that Cross mentions foxes hunting a deer fawn as there is a note by a naturalist that he observed several foxes "stalking" a deer in the snow circa 1950s. Now foxes are curious and do follow and also use game trails so this is unlikely to be a hunt as such and more like travelling an easy route in snow already trampled down by an heavier animal.
We are learning all the time about our Old foxes -and there were similar in Western Europe- but the work is slowed down due to the fact that no one funds such research and we need more pre 1900 fox taxidermy. The only reason the Fox Deaths Project can even take place is because I fought long and hard and showed that there were things we could learn and we have learnt a lot but if we had to pay for every post mortem and the tests it would have cost many thousands of pounds and we do not have that.
Our photo data base of old taxidermy and modern foxes is growing and these lead to some interesting discoveries but, again, the work takes time and money.
It is sad that a key animal in our environment will have many thousands spent to poison, shoot, snare and otherwise kill it (and I include secondary rodenticide poisoning here thanks to public misuse and local authorities) but no one will contribute or finance a study of foxes. One thing that has become very clear after nearly 50 years of studying foxes is that they are once again at a point where they may well be pushed to the brink of being listed as Endangered or pushed further into extinction. It happened to the Old fox and Old wild cat.
Extinction is forever.
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