Gray Fox Urocyon cinereoargenteus

The gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) is a native to Vermont and can be found throughout most of the United States. Slightly smaller than its cousin, the red fox, it prefers wooded habitat. It is also known as the flying fox or tree fox because unlike most canids the gray fox has semi-retractable claws, which enable it to climb.

Vermont Wildlife Fact Sheet

Physical Description uncommon for males to fight plants that are seasonally aggressively in competition for available and abundant. The gray fox resembles a females. After mating, a male small dog in size, weighing an will stay with a female to provide average of seven to 13 pounds her with food during denning and and measuring from 31 to 44 to assist in caring of the young. Habits & Habitats inches in length, from nose to tail. After a gestation period of Its coat is gray or reddish gray in 53 days, young are born in a litter The gray fox prefers dense color with black tipped hairs ranging in size from one to seven hardwood or mixed down the middle of its back. The pups. The dark brown pups are hardwood/softwood forests. Gray back, legs, neck and underside of born blind and are dependent on fox habitat is commonly located its tail are rust color. Its nose and their parents for survival. They along the banks of streams and muzzle are black and a black line are weaned, or stop suckling, at rivers. It also prefers overgrown streaks from its eyes to its neck. about six weeks of age. fields for foraging. The gray fox The claws on a gray fox are Gradually they learn how to fend requires den sites, which may be a strong and are retractable, which for themselves. At three months, hollow log or tree, rock crevice, allows it to be an adept climber. the pups leave the den with their piles of wood or a brush pile. It The gray fox is often parents and learn to hunt. By four often lines the den with shredded mistaken for the red fox, due to months of age the pups are able to bark or leaves and will return to the gray fox's mixed coloration of forage on their own. The young the same one year after year. gray and red. An easy way to tell remain with the parents until fall, The gray fox is nocturnal the two species apart is that red at which time they reach sexual and crepuscular, which means it is foxes have black feet but grays do maturity and disperse. most active at dusk and dawn. not. Another distinguishing trait is During the day, it remains in the the black stripe and black tip on Food Items den. The gray fox is extremely its tail, where as the red fox has a territorial of its small (often only white tipped tail. The gray fox is an one square mile) home range. It is omnivore, eating a wide variety of a secretive. Life Cycle plants and animals. Common This fox is unlike any prey includes rabbits, rodents, other canid in its ability to climb The gray fox breeds and birds, crickets, grasshoppers, trees. It will climb trees to escape raises one litter annually, squirrels, opossum and fresh ground predators, to pursue tree beginning the first year of its life. carrion (dead animals). The gray dwelling animals, or to attack The breeding season for the gray fox also supplements its diet with ground prey from above. The fox ranges from February to apples, grapes, corn and other gray fox can climb up a tree by March. During this time, it is not grasping the trunk with its Gray Fox Fact Sheet 1 forepaws and forcing itself up populations of rodents that might higher by the strength of the otherwise damage agricultural claws on its back feet. To crops or transmit disease. Gray descend, it can scramble down foxes are also hunted and trapped head or feet first by jumping from by humans. branch to branch. Management Efforts Abundance There is no active Gray foxes can be found management plan designed for the throughout Vermont but are more gray fox, but continued common in areas where preferred monitoring is conducted to ensure habitat is abundant. They can be that their population remains found in higher densities at lower healthy and abundant. They are elevations and in the southern protected from hunting and two-thirds of the state. trapping during the breeding and pup-rearing season, as the hunting History season in Vermont is from October to early February. Prior to European There are a number of settlement in Vermont, the gray canine diseases and parasitic fox roamed the forests and infections, such as heartworm and enjoyed abundant habitat distemper that can occur in a opportunities in dense hardwoods population that has grown too and mixed forests. As land was large. The harvesting of gray cleared for agricultural and foxes then is not only beneficial logging practices, gray fox habitat to humans, but to the overall fox was reduced. Additionally, its population as well. secretive habits led the European settlers to believe there were no foxes present here, so they introduced the red fox for Illustration by John James Audubon – hunting. These two factors “The Quadrupeds of North America” contributed to a decline in the gray fox population in the early 1800s. However, land use has changed considerably from the 1850s to the present. As farming was abandoned forests slowly reverted to woodlands. Today over 80 percent of Vermont is forested. The habitat for the gray fox has as a result improved.

Resource Utilization

Gray foxes are an important predator species. They can play a vital role in controlling Gray Fox Fact Sheet 2