Report: it's a busy and noisy time of year for foxes so there's a good reason why you might have seen more of them around
Wherever you're living in the country, you might notice more foxes out and about in the evening at this time of year. There's also more noise coming from them than at other times of the year. You might be one of those people who loves to see them slink by the house at dusk, or maybe you see them as a pest and a scavenger.
Research associate in zoology at Trinity College Dublin Collie Ennis joined the Today with Claire Byrne show on RTE Radio 1 to tell us what those foxes are up to. (This piece includes excerpts from the conversation which have been edited for length and clarity - you can hear the discussion in full above).
Why are there so many foxes roaming around?
Ennis explains that it's romance season in the fox world: "There's a lot of amorous males wandering around, looking for mates and marking territories, and doing all that carry on at this time of year, and it's quite vocal as well. From December right into January, this kind of behaviour will be very typical of the foxes around, especially in urban areas. They'll be here in a lot of ruckus."
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From RTÉ Brainstorm, why the fox has moved into our cities
Unfortunately, that's also why you tend to see a lot of foxes being killed on the roads at this time of year. "You get at this around the winter time when the males are roaming around looking for females, and then you'll get it at the end of the summer when the younger foxes are dispersing away from their mothers."
When do the fox babies arrive?
The gestation period for the baby foxes is around 58 days, but Ennis explains that we won't be seeing the fox cubs for a while. "They'll be born in March and the heads will start appearing out of their den or their set into the summer. They'll be adventuring out then over the summer months before dispersing or staying with the parents, depending on how much food is around the area for them."
Are they getting a bit cheekier when they come out? Ennis says urban foxes have realised that people aren't that interested and aren't a threat to them. "The most they'll do is pull out a mobile phone and start recording them -- if anything, they've caught onto the fact that we're a really good potential source of food. So yeah, they're very used to us and they don't seem to be bothered by us at all in urban areas. They're well used to living beside people and it doesn't bother them at all."
From Ecofact, trail camera footage of fox cubs playing at a site in north Co Tipperary
Should people feed foxes when they see them?
"There's two schools of thought on feeding foxes", says Ennis. "Some people say 'do it' and some people say 'don't'. If you are to look after your local foxes, I don't see any harm in it, but just don't get them too dependent on you, if that makes sense. Give them a little bit of food that replicates their own natural diet: eggs, bits of meat, you can even feed them cat food, stuff like that. Not sweets and chocolates and the good stuff we like. Just feed them a little enough and often, and that means they don't become completely dependent on you and they'll still engage in our wild behaviour."
Ennis says we should remember that they are "fantastic" hunters. "The urban foxes around Dublin are very interesting. During lockdown, they completely switched back into being hunters because there was nothing to scavenge around during those months when people weren't in the city centre. They completely switched overnight and just started killing all the pigeons that were around. It was incredible to watch from a naturalist point of view."
