Mainside Quantico: Red Foxes

A few weeks ago on the base we got a phone call about a family of red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) that had taken residency close to one of the buildings on the mainside of base. The folks were fairly concerned about health and human safety, as well as the awful stench of rotting catfish carcasses, snake carcasses and fawn parts, so we went over and inspected the area, discussed the concern and gave them tips on what to do: make the foxes know they aren't welcome around the buildings. We told the staff to just make loud noises when you see them. We went back to the office and I did some research on fox kits and den usage and came up with the following info for them (and for a plan moving forward):

Red foxes are very well suited as urban adapters, tolerating human presence quite readily. Red foxes will mainly utilize dens during kit-rearing season and is harsh weather (think hard winters). They often repurpose groundhog (Marmota monax) burrows. In Virginia, it's illegal to trap and relocate foxes. When the kits are old enough (8 weeks), adult foxes will leave remnant food scraps around to help teach the kits to hunt. This was the reason for all the catfish heads laying around - in 90 degree weather, they smell pretty rough.

My plan of attack was to deter the foxes from maintaining their presence at the facility. I planned to put sticks and debris inside the den entrances. This would ideally make the foxes realize it's not worth it to stay put anymore, but wouldn't prevent them from being able to leave the den and starving to death. Ideally with repeated attempts, they'd run off for good. Additionally, I told the folks we'd set up game cameras on the den entrances and also remove the fish heads every time we came to check the cameras. I figured a solid approach to get the foxes to move along and a thorough effort to help the staff out is a win-win for everyone.

The result: success, sort of. Although I saw them around the facilities the first day I was there, after looking at the cameras, they seemed curious about the den entrances, but didn't really attempt to get back in them. So I learned that foxes often have multiple den locations, I assume in case one location is compromised such as in this case.

We're still working on pushing the foxes out of the other location - this time under another building. This one is just a sectional trailer on the base with plastic skirting around the bottom, so a foundation isn't present to deter the foxes. I will continue to monitor the foxes and see what we can do to have them move to less-occupied (forested) areas nearby.

Here are some photos of the foxes that we have on camera: