Welcome Fox

 I know an old lady who swallowed a Fox, my that's outside of the box! She swallowed the fox to catch the mouse, I don't know why she swallowed the mouse, perhaps she'll die. I know an old lady who swallowed a coyote, how quixote! She swallowed the coyote to catch the fox. She swallowed the fox to catch the mouse. I don't know why she swallowed the mouse, perhaps she'll die. There was an old lady who swallowed a tick, ick!  

photograph by Alexander Andrews

When Ginny howls wolf at the window, you will find me lining myself up behind her getting low to look at the exact spot that caused her to howl. Luna positions herself at our side letting out an ear splitting racket. As anyone who walks past our house knows, Luna pulls the fire alarm at everything that moves. This spring she caused a five bike pile up when the lead biker stopped in his tracks upon hearing the hounds. Ginny yaps at passers bye, especially children on wheels, chipmunks and other dogs; but she reserves her howl for Toby the neighborhood cat, saxophones and other villains like fox.

So it was one morning all heck broke loose causing Wayne a near heart attack though he was down in the basement. With all of the hysterics going on behind the glass, the fox paused and looked directly at us. It was a miserable looking creature with barely a hair left on her tail. After a good look at us, she trotted across the road and down into the woods. I say she because mid March is the time of year when fox move in near our homes to have their pups which emerge in April.* They won't stay long, so keep an eye out. 

It's thought that the reason a she fox or vixen dens up under our porches, sheds and in our culverts is not to take advantage of our domestic pets; but rather to find a measure of safety from wildlife competitors and predators. The coyote is predominantly a resource competitor with the fox and they will eliminate fox and their kits when food resources are scarce.** Human created land pressure has decreased available territory and so coyotes and fox have learned to adapt to our environment. In truth, the fox is a solitary animal which would much prefer to be as far away from humans and coyotes as possible. 

There was a time in VT when the Gray Wolf was top Canid and the coyote was nowhere to be found. However, when the wolf became extinct in VT by the late 1800s due to habitat clearing and a twenty dollar a hide bounty to protect livestock, the coyote moved in.*** This story of habitat competitors reminds me of watching plovers as I walk along the ocean shore. When the wave rolls onto the shore, the birds retreat to dryer sand; but when the wave draws back into the ocean, the tiny birds rush towards the ocean searching for food. When we introduce people walking on the beach, the little birds get pushed further down the beach while they run to and from the ocean. 

So why have I taken liberties with Rose Bonne's classic about an old lady? Because when we humans begin to see predators in our backyards, we tend to find ways to drive them out and that may not be to our best advantage. While it's true that a sick fox or a few dead Rhode Island Reds might rightfully so raise alarm, what we should really be concerned about is having no fox at all. This is where the lowly tick comes in. We have all learned to fall in love with that homely tick eating Marsupial the Opossum because we see them as providing us with a no cost service. What if I were to tell you that the fox plays an important role in controlling Lyme Disease too?

"White-footed mice are the principal natural reservoirs for Lyme disease bacteria. Ticks that feed on mice are highly likely to become infected, making them capable of transmitting Lyme disease to people during their next blood meal"****

While it's true that Canids and other animals carry Borrelia, only about ten percent of ticks become infected with the bacteria from feeding on coyote, fox, deer, racoons, possums and birds. We associate Lyme infection with these animals because ticks hitch rides on them.  White footed mice infect ticks ninety percent of the time and a fox can eat five thousand mice a year.**** It makes sense that the fewer the mice the lower the infection and in fact research seems to supports it. In an area where there are less coyotes, there are more fox resulting in fewer mice and therefor fewer infected ticks.*****

 It turns out that biodiversity is a pretty good tool for preventing disease while eradication of a species creates more complications. It also turns out that given enough food resources, fox will cohabitate with coyote with little conflict and the same goes with fox and domestic animals.***** Speaking of other food sources, mice populations are also impacted by other factors besides fox predation, for example a variation in their own food availability as well as the fact that there are many more predators of mice than fox. 

As for those Rhode Island Reds, VT Fish and Wildlife recommends that electric fencing and proper feed management to reduce your losses. -Norma Manning

Resources:

*Discover Wildlife, A Year in the Life of an Urban fox

**Smithsonian Magazine, Foxes and Coyotes are Natural Enemies or are they?

***Stowe Reporter, Not Crying Wolf

****Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Lyme Disease 

*****Cary Institute, Fox and coyote and ticks -oh my

Further reading:

Furbearer Conservation, A Tale of Two Reds: Old-world Versus New-world Red Fox

Make Way for The Hunters

 Wayne and I have been ribbing each other for a couple of weeks and it goes something like this; I say "skunk" and he says "Squirrel." Nothing more needs to be said as we exactly know what the other's argument is. Last night while glued to multiple news outlets, Wayne put Luna out for the annoy(inth) time, only to immediately bring her back in. He held her firmly by the collar and marched her right into the living room. He inquired if she smelled like skunk, ran his hands over her raised back hair and went back outside. Looking both bewildered and remorseful, Luna dared not move from where Wayne had left her.  Thankfully, Luna sported only eau de fraiche! When Wayne returned to his chair, under my breath I said, "skunk." 

 While hunters case the fields and woods in Vernon, it seems prudent for hikers to stick to well traveled paths and roads. Although it's not against the rules for hikers to be in these areas during hunting season, I feel that it's a minor inconvenience to allow hunters the space they need for a sport that is a valuable asset to VT conservation.* Additionally, space is getting tighter for this heritage sport due to the parcelization and development (not to mention the posting) of land. The VT Natural Resources Council reported, that between 2012 and 2017, Vermont lost an estimated 100,2000 acres of forestland. "Both the amount of land in parcels 50 acres and larger and the number of parcels 50 acres and larger are decreasing..."** The squeeze is on for both conservation and hunters, so I figure that I will survive a few weekends doing yard work instead of hiking. 

If none of this is making any sense at all to you, fear not for I have thought of a visual. Imagine that you purchased  one of those premade rectangle cheese pizza's at the deli. Wayne thought he would like pizza and so bought a cheese pizza. Because someone (Wayne) hates olives, I ceremoniously place olives on only half of that pizza making half inedible for him. Now this pizza is plenty big enough for two, so half a pizza isn't such a big deal. It's not a problem that is, until your brother in law who likes anchovies (blech) stakes a claim. Wayne seeing that others are adding on, is bound to want cured meat and mushrooms but not fish or olives. He begins to add his toppings, only to learn that a millennial vegetarian who also hates olives and mushrooms is craving eggplant pizza...Wayne bakes the pizza in the oven and then carefully cuts it up. Wayne is happy to finally have his portion before our son walks in and declares, "Yum, pepperoni and mushroom pizza! 

 As I was saying, I have plenty of leaf and twig management to break a sweat and keep me out of the woods on November weekends; and as it turns out, after the first hard freeze is a wonderful ankle twisting time to explore your own subdivided property. Occasionally we've had deer wander through our yard; but we have dogs and we don't have enough land for them to take up residence. Our residents are smaller animals that discovered their niche in our man made ecosystem. One unbashful resident is the skunk that digs holes in the lawn searching for tasty grubs all the while being ever alert to our nosey Luna.  I consider skunks to be allies, as comparatively thinking, their aerating my lawn is better than having all the roots gnawed away by hungry grubs. However, if I were the manicured lawn sort of landowner, skunks digging up my yard could also be upsetting. 

Nothing keeps me from my chores like any excuse I can find coupled with a good mystery. When I was cutting down the area that I allow to grow up each year for wildlife, I discovered that a den had been used for a second season. The difference between this year and last, is that the abode was noticeably expanded. I measured dirt that had been cast 54 inches from the opening and then 39 inches opposite of that. There was no lose dirt to the left or right of the den. The entrance is eight inches tall and twelve inches wide. I stuck my tape in 68 inches before I chickened out and stopped poking the bear. Okay, so perhaps not a bear; but maybe a Red Fox calls the den home.*** I managed to find one unidentifiable (for this novice) print that somewhat looks like a Red Fox print. I have managed to have no negative encounters with this resident and so I'm pleased to share the premises. 

While both the skunk and fox made their home in our backyard, we have a more frustrating "friend" mining out front. This is the ankle twisting chap that I wrote about above. If you are unaware of his impressive work, your foot will suddenly sink and you'll be hoping that you can pick yourself up off the ground before the neighbors see you there. Why is it that the smallest of creatures can cause the greatest anguish? Vermont Garden Journal reports that the smell of raw castor oil spread along the tunnel irritates their senses;**** but our mole's or vole's longest tunnel is 50 paces long! This does not include all of the spurs that run to the left and right that connect to other tunnels. Perhaps it would be easier to wear snowshoes while out front. Having my tape measure already at hand, I found their tunnels to be five inches wide on the outside and rising three inches above the ground. What's interesting, is that upon finding the spot where the tunnel was mounded, I gently pushed the dirt aside to find a perfectly round quarter sized hole leading to a three inch deep, below ground tunnel. Seeing that there are mounds of soil along the tunnel, I suspect that we have moles. Moles (unlike voles) mean my bulbs and trees no harm as they are in search of worms.**** In any event, I also noted a pile of scat near one end of the tunnel. A pile of scat may mean that a predator is already on the job and will soon solve our mole concerns. 

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It's important that Vermonters become familiar with the impact that land use has on the precarious balance of prey and predator. In my neighborhood, there was once a covenant that prohibited fences. I assume that this ban was an attempt mediate the impact of the development and allow large mammals to pass through it. The covenant has since expired and so additional "roadblocks" have been erected. 

If somehow we managed to erect enough "roadblocks" to keep predators like the fox out of the neighborhood, imagine the number of rabbits, (say nothing of moles) that we would have to adjust to!  

When Europeans brought with them farming, a fear of large predators and an increased demand for fur and trophies to Vermont, the days of the Vermont Catamount and wolf became numbered. The last native Catamount was shot in 1881.***** Our native wolf disappeared from VT in the late 1800's, only to have the non native Coyote move into the state in the 1940's.******The loss of these large native predators created an imbalance in our White Tail populations. To their detriment, this human interference increased VT's deer numbers past carrying capacity. One result of increased populations is winter starvation as competition for food depletes resources. Other impacts of crowding are stress, the spread of diseases like respiratory illnesses and Chronic Wasting Disease. Parasites like deer tick are also brought into neighborhoods when land pressure and overcrowding occur. High deer populations also increased conflicts with humans in the way of crop destruction and eventually with the automobile which came on the scene in 1898. Without the Catamount and wolf, careful heard management through hunting became imperative to sustain a healthy White Tail population. Without large unimpeded tracts of land for deer habitat, and permission granted by landowners to hunt on it, the balance may again be jeopardized. The alternative is to welcome higher numbers of large predators like the coyote and bobcat into our communities; but again, that would require large tracts of undeveloped land if they are to avoid conflicts with humans.

-Norma Manning

Resources:

*A New Need For an Old Tradition: Hunters Help Vermont's Forests, Vermont Land Trust

**Loss of Undeveloped Woodland in VT, VT Natural Resources Council

***Red Fox, Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department

****Vermont Garden Journal: Moles and Voles, VPR

*****It's Official: Feds Declare The Catamount Extinct, VPR

******Coyote, Vermont Fish and Wildlife