Foxes are fascinating critters.
In fact, the rarely seen red fox may be more common in Banff National Park than initially thought.
Recently, a dead red fox was found in the ditch of the westbound lane of the Trans-Canada Highway at the top of Seven Mile Hill west of the park gates, while remote cameras are now picking up the wary critters throughout the park.
“Through the 1990s and 2000s, we received occasional sightings of red fox, but we did not think they were very common in Banff National Park,” said Jesse Whittington, a wildlife ecologist with Banff National Park.
“But when we started our broader remote camera monitoring project around 2010-11, we started picking up a surprising number of red fox on our cameras and they’re actually fairly common in much of Banff National Park.”
Presently, there are about 200 remote cameras dedicated to monitoring long-term trends in wildlife populations throughout Banff, Yoho and Kootenay national parks.
Whittington said red foxes have been detected at about 20 per cent of the remote camera locations in Banff National Park, for a total of 1,400 times.
“Most of the red fox are most commonly detected on the eastern slopes, but we are also picking them up at higher elevations like Egypt Lake,” he said.
“Fox hunt mice and voles and small rodents, so they typically do best in areas with lower snow depth.”
Red foxes are wary and hunt at night. In fact, 72 per cent of the detection of foxes on cameras were between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m.
“It’s neat. It’s one of those animals we don’t get to spend a lot of time with,” said Whittington. “They’re beautiful when we do get the chance to see them or watch them hunt.”
When combining camera data from Banff, Yoho, Kootenay, Jasper and Waterton national parks, red fox have been detected more than 3,700 times since 2010.
It appears their range is fairly stable, said Whittington.
“Fox are twice as common in Waterton compared to other areas, probably because of it’s shallower snows and better habitat,” said Whittington.
“In Waterton, we’re detecting fox at about 40 per cent of the sites and at other parks about 20 per cent of sites.”
Throughout the parks from Waterton to Jasper, Parks Canada has sampled close to 1,000 camera sites since 2010.
Whittington said the cameras help researchers monitor range contraction and expansion.
“We cannot easily estimate population sizes because we can’t identify individuals, but the cameras give us an index for status of population,” he said.
“Changes in distribution would be linked to changes in abundance. We haven’t seen any large changes in fox from 2011 to 2016 and we’re currently working through 2017.”
