Why Are There So Many Foxes in Cities? Urban Fox Facts

Why do foxes live in cities?

The red fox is a generalist. It eats almost anything, can live in small territories and is comfortable around people as long as it is not persecuted. Towns suit it well for several reasons:

• Food is easy to find. Gardens are full of earthworms, beetles, slugs, mice and rats. Foxes also scavenge food waste from bins and streets, and some people feed them deliberately.
• Plenty of shelter. Foxes dig dens under garden sheds, decking, outbuildings and railway embankments, and rest in overgrown gardens, cemeteries and parks.
• Few enemies. Cities have no wolves, lynx or eagles, and in Britain hunting with hounds and most shooting are not possible in built-up areas.
• Mild conditions. Towns are warmer than the surrounding countryside, and food is available all year round.

The only big danger in most towns is traffic, which kills large numbers of urban foxes every year. Read more about this in how long do foxes live?

When did foxes move into cities?

Britain has the best-studied urban foxes in the world. Foxes began colonizing London and other southern English towns in the 1930s, when large new suburbs of low-density houses with big gardens spread over farmland. Foxes did not have to move very far: the suburbs grew around them, and they adapted to the new landscape.

By the 1970s and 1980s, foxes were well established in many English towns, including London, Bristol, Bournemouth and Brighton. For a long time they were scarce in some northern cities, but surveys in the 2010s found that foxes had spread into many towns where they had been rare, and they are now familiar in cities such as Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow. They are also common in suburban Dublin.

Foxes have been recorded in surprising places. In 2011 a fox was found living near the top of the Shard skyscraper in London while it was still being built, having apparently climbed the stairs. In 2014 a radio-collared urban fox called Fleet, tracked by the University of Brighton, traveled about 195 miles (314 km) in 21 days from his home in Hove across the Sussex countryside, showing that city and country foxes are not separate populations.

Urban foxes outside Britain

Foxes live in towns in many countries:

• Continental Europe. After rabies was eliminated from much of central and western Europe through vaccination, fox numbers rose and foxes moved into cities such as Zurich, Berlin, Oslo and Copenhagen.
• North America. Red foxes and gray foxes live in many cities and suburbs, including Toronto, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and parts of the San Francisco Bay Area. Where coyotes are common, they often push foxes into smaller patches of habitat closer to houses.
• Australia. Red foxes were introduced in the 19th century and are now common in cities such as Melbourne, Sydney and Perth, where they are considered an invasive pest for native wildlife.
• Japan. Red foxes live in and around Sapporo and other towns in Hokkaido.

What do urban foxes eat?

City foxes eat the same kinds of food as country foxes, plus whatever people leave behind. Their diet includes earthworms, insects, rats, mice, pigeons and other birds, fruit and berries, and scavenged food waste. Studies in British towns have found that scavenged and deliberately provided food often make up a large part of what urban foxes eat. Learn more in what do foxes eat?

Because food is concentrated, urban foxes can live in smaller territories than rural foxes. Some city territories are well under 1 km² (0.4 sq mi), while foxes in open farmland or uplands may need many square kilometers. A family group of a breeding pair, their cubs and sometimes one or two helpers shares each territory.

How many urban foxes are there?

Counting foxes in cities is difficult, so all numbers are estimates. In Britain, urban foxes were estimated at around 33,000 in the mid-1990s. A later national survey suggested about 150,000 by the mid-2010s, although the authors pointed out that the figure had wide uncertainty. Britain’s total fox population, urban and rural, is estimated in the hundreds of thousands.

Urban fox numbers can also crash. When sarcoptic mange, a skin disease caused by mites, spread through Bristol in the mid-1990s, the city’s fox population fell by the large majority within a few years and took many years to recover.

Are cities being overrun by foxes?

Probably not, despite frequent headlines. Foxes are territorial: each family group defends its own patch and drives out strangers. Once all good territories are filled, numbers stay roughly stable, because extra young foxes either leave or die.

This is also why removing foxes from a neighborhood rarely works for long. When a fox family disappears, neighboring foxes or young dispersing animals soon move into the empty territory. Foxes may seem more common than before partly because they are less shy in towns and more often seen in daylight.

Myths about urban foxes

• Myth: urban foxes are country foxes dumped in towns by pest controllers. Fact: there is no evidence for this. Urban fox populations breed in towns and sustain themselves.
• Myth: foxes regularly attack people. Fact: attacks on people are extremely rare, and foxes usually run from people. Like any wild animal, they should not be approached or handled.
• Myth: foxes kill lots of cats. Fact: foxes and cats usually avoid each other, and studies in British cities have found that cats are rarely killed by foxes.
• Myth: screaming at night means a fox is hurt. Fact: the screams are a normal part of fox communication in the winter breeding season.

For a wider look at the places foxes live, from Arctic tundra to the Sahara, see where do foxes live?