The Nature of Foxes: Hunters of the Shadows

Patrick Colgan is the executive director of the Canadian Museum of
Nature in Ottawa.

Except for chicken farmers and kindred sorts, most people find foxes
graceful and pleasing animals. Thus it is easy to share the affection
with which Rebecca Grambo, a Saskatchewan-based nature photographer and
writer, prefaces her first book.

The first of three chapters, on foxes around the world, presents an
overview on their distribution (the red fox is the most widely
distributed carnivore), ecological convergence with cats, and general
biology, including features such as the tapetum of the eye (which
facilitates night vision), adaptations for desert life, social
organization, threats from humans, and wide diet and caching. North
American species are well represented in some detail. The second chapter
briefly reports on the annual cycle of spring littering, learning to
hunt in the summer, autumnal maturity and dispersal, and winter
predation and mating. The interactions of humans and foxes are treated
in the third chapter, with foxes variously seen as the protagonists in
myths, the targets of fur-trappers and “sport” hunters, and
endangered species in some areas or introduced species in new regions.
The community dynamics involving rabies and control programs, and issues
of animal welfare and appreciating nature, are especially interesting. A
final discussion on the aesthetic value of observing foxes is a fitting
conclusion.

Lavishly illustrated with beautiful photographs, and written in a
flowing and evocative style, The Nature of Foxes is an attractive
introduction to a fascinating group of animals.