The Life of a Rural Fox

Farmers work hard and often unless you travel through rural areas of the country, you often forget where your food comes from. Vegetables, fruits, you name it, are planted, grown and harvested through the sweat of our country farmers. Often, too, there may be some who raise certain types of fowl for selling or home consumption. Sadly, there are predators that may encroach upon a farmer or rancher's land that are deemed a "nuisance'. Thus in my travels, I am learning that some landowners are very amenable to fox presence as long as their hunting or existence doesn't harm their harvest, gardens or small animals. I have been told repeatedly in certain areas that they are poisoned, shot or trapped, equated equally as rats or mice, nothing more, nothing less. But I have been very fortunate that in almost a year of search for rural foxes, I have found a live den, brewing with activity from newborn pups and two sets of parents. A den with six entrances along a rural gravel country road, sitting between two large farms. I have been witness to the foxes darting in and out, leaping with joy, hiding in fear and learning to hunt. I have been visiting the den since the pups were 3-4 weeks of age, now venturing out of the den, becoming bolder and learning under their parents' guidance. The day I found the first kit, he was no larger than a small kitten, hidden in the long grass and weeds in a ravine along a rural isolated road. I am on a journey and have no idea where it is leading but this is a road I must take as they reluctantly allow me to watch them when I am allowed. . . . . .